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THE
PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY
AND
PRINCETON REVIEW.
t
NEW SERIES, No. 22.— JULY, 1877.
Art. 1. — THE HIGHER LIFE AND CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.*
By Lyman H. Atwater.
That the prevalent tone cf Christian experience and holy-
living is quite below the level of scriptural standards and privi-
leges ; that there is an urgent call for the great body of Chris-
tians to rise to a much higher plane of inward piety and its
visiblefruits ; that none are so high that they should not make
it their supreme endeavor to rise higher ; that to struggle on-
ward and upward through the strength, holiness and grace al-
ready attained to yet higher measures of them, so that receiv-
ing grace for grace, they may go from strength to strength
toward the goal of sinless perfection whenever and wheresoever
attainable ; that so there is required the ceaseless effort to get
free from sin and overcome indwelling corruption, are proposi-
tions which few will be found to dispute, unless, indeed, some
Perfectionists dispute the last of them, claiming to have reached
* The Higher Christian Life , by Rev. W. E. Boardman.
Pioneer Experiences ; or, the Gift of Posner Received by Faith. Illustrated and
Confirmed by the Testimony of Eighty Living Witnesses of Various Detiominations.
By the author of “ Way of Holiness,” &c. Introduction by Rev. Bishop Janes.
The Rest of Faith , by Rev. Isaac M. See.
Autobiography of Rev. Charles G. Finney. Chapter xxvii.
Holiness the Birthright of God's Children , by the Rev. J. T. Crane, D. D.
The Old Paths ; a Treatise on Sanctification. Scripture the Only Authority. By
Rev. Thomas Mitchell.
Purity and Maturity, by Rev. J. A. W ood.
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, by Rev. John Wesley.
(New Series, No. 22.) 25
The Higher Life
390
[July,
entire sinlessness in this life. They are to the eye of true
Christian insight their own evidence.
To emphasize and magnify the “ Higher Life’’ in this sense
is simply to recognize and strive to give effect to the princi-
ples of our common Christianity ; and in this all will or ought
heartily to join. It is worth while to mark this distinctly at
the outset. For this term “higher life” is constantly used
now to denote something quite different, as if it were the
peculiarity of a small select circle who make it their watchword,
a badge of the chosen few who have reached summits of Chris-
tian experience quite above the great mass of the common-
wealth of Israel. Theirs are the gifts and endowments to
which Christians generally are strangers, and theirs the joys
with which a stranger intermeddleth not. The distinctive
views of the class we refer to, amid many minor and circum-
stantial variations, are for substance :
1. That sinless perfection is attainable, and by those who
attain the higher life in question, actually attained in this
life.
2. That it is gained instantaneously by an act of faith in
Christ, which appropriates him for immediate and entire sanc-
tification, in the same manner as for immediate and full jus-
tification ; and that each is equally, with the other, immediate,
equally complete, equally conferred co-instantaneously with
the act of faith which receives it ; and in equal independence
of works, as in any sense either the procuring, instrumental,
efficient or meritorious cause.
3. Therefore, that this perfect sanctification is not through
any process of gradual growth, striving, or advancement to-
ward sinless perfection, whether in this life or the life to
come; but is at once grasped by faith, and held by it till let go
by backsliding or apostasy — the latter being regarded by the
Higher Life Arminians as liable, by those that are Calvinists
as not liable, to occur.
4. This attainment is attended with the constant or ordi-
nary presence of unclouded peace, joy and hope, such as the
Bible connects with the highest grades of Christian experi-
ence.
5. Some, perhaps most, of this Higher Life school, so far es-
pecially as it has appeared in Calvinistic communions, maintain
i8 77.] and Christian Perfection. 391
that this act of faith which instantaneously grasps perfect sanc-
tity is preceded by an act of entire consecration to God in
Christ. In other words, it is preceded by itself — for entire
consecration is perfect holiness.
In regard to all these points we think the position taken in
our standards scriptural and impregnable, and that no more
correct and adequate enunciation of Christian truth in the
premises can be found.*
We may remark, before going further, that with some the
doctrine of Higher Life means merely the habitual possession
and enjoyment of Christian assurance, in which they erro-
neously conceive themselves exceptional or superior to any
recognized standards of Christian experience in evangelical
churches. This, however, as our standards affirm, belongs to
the normal development of Christian experience ; not, how-
ever, so that it usually becomes firm and enduring, even if it
appear at all, in the early stages of the regenerate life. It
rather belongs normally, though not exclusively, to the ma-
turer stages of Christian experience; it is confirmed by the
culture and consequent evidence of the graces, which are also
the fruits of the Spirit, and evidences of his saving work.
These, however, are so wrought in us by the Spirit as to de-
pend at the same time upon our “ giving all diligence unto the
full assurance of hope unto the end”; all “diligence to make our
calling and election sure,” the Holy Spirit herein and hereby
witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God.
It is too true that far fewer attain this blessed estate than
might be looked for in a normal condition of the church; far
fewer than those to whom the privileges of the gospel estate
and Christian vocation open it, who might and should work
up to and reach it. It is no less true that those who attain a
sound assurance sustained by good Christian fruits, reach a
higher than average Christian life, and generally higher than
their own previous Christian life. In this sense a higher life
than the average among Christians may be maintained. But
this is not, or is only in part, the kind of higher life intended.
This latter involves not only assurance, which rests on perfect
justification duly proving itself by holiness of life, but perfect
*See Larger Catechism , answers to questions 77 8-9-80. Shorter Catechism ,
questions 35-82.
392
The Higher Life
[July,
sanctification ; and this sanctification received by some single
act of faith as an accomplished fact, which keeps the soul in a
continuous state of freedom from sin, and from all conscience
of sin, and so of abiding peace and joy, by a sort of quietistic
resting in Christ, not only for justification, but for sanctifica-
tion. This peace and assurance, too, come not mainly from
the sense of pardon through Christ’s imputed righteousness,
but of sinlessness through the perfect inherent righteousness
or holiness wrought by him within us, and received by us, like
his justifying righteousness, by faith, without personal works
or strivings on our part to effect or to promote it.
As we shall see more fully further on, this perfectionism is
defined and vindicated in different and often inconsistent ways
by its advocates. It is apt to run into some form of Quietism
or Mysticism, or Antinomianism, or licentiousness, while a
large proportion of those embracing some forms of it give
every sign of leading holy lives.
The Reformed and Calvinistic doctrine, as expressed in our
standards, and as held by nearly all evangelical Protestants,
the Methodists and Lutherans excepted, differs from the fore-
going by asserting that sin, although subdued and growing
weaker, is never entirely eradicated in this life ; while the re-
newed spirit, ever struggling against it, is, notwithstanding
possible occasional vicissitudes and backslidings, on the whole
gaining the mastery over it, till the grand consummation of
complete deliverance from sin is reached at death, which itself
with sin — its cause — there dies. Hence it maintains that sanc-
tification is a gradual work, growing with the growth, and pro-
moted by the efforts, struggles and prayers of the Christian ;
who, while in his predominating character holy, is yet never
free in this life from the remains of sin, which, though ever dy-
ing, is not dead, but still maintains its dying struggle, till the
soul, freed at death, passes to be one of the spirits of the just
made perfect.
In further clearing the issue before us, it is expedient to dis-
pose of a number of inconclusive arguments, often and confi-
dently advanced by the advocates of the theory in question.
i. Those passages of Scripture which attribute sanctifica-
tion, holiness, or purity to believers, or which exhort them to
seek, pursue or practise the same, or which promise deliver-
1877-]
and Christian Perfection.
393
ance from sin in its guilt, pollution and dominion, or which
covenant full and complete salvation — all these prove nothing
in behalf of sinless perfection in this life. They prove nothing
because they are applied to all Christians and saints as such in
the Scripture, and not merely to a few select ones of a higher
grade of Christian life than the mass. But it is admitted by this
school that the mass of Christians have not yet attained, and in
this life most of them never will attain, sinless perfection. There-
fore, if they are actually addressed to those who are Christians,
but yet not sinlessly perfect, then this demonstrates that they
give no evidence of the perfect sinlessness of those to whom
they are addressed, or for whom they are designed.
Not only so, but the Christian to whom all pretensions of
sinless perfection are alien and offensive, interprets these pas-
sages as applicable to himself and suiting his own case, with-
out the least consciousness or suspicion of distorting, pervert-
ing, or overstraining their proper import. Full salvation is in-
deed promised and secured to all the faithful in Christ Jesus.
But it is only in part or in its beginnings here ; in its seed first
•implanted and quickened in regeneration, herein having the
pledge of onward growth in holiness, and increasing Christian
fruitage upon earth. The soul is to be made perfect therein
at death ; then immediately passing into glory to await re-
union with the body at the resurrection of the just, when
Christ shall raise it again, and make it like unto his glorious
body. So we receive a full salvation in Christ when we receive
him by faith ; but a salvation begun here, and completed only
with respect to the soul when we pass by the gate of death to
the realms of glory ; and with respect to the body when it
shall also be raised in glory. All these things are included in
salvation, a part at once finished and perfect upon the first act
of faith, as justification and a title to the heavenly inheritance ;
a part inchoate and germinant, to have a future development
and growth, as sanctification and Christian maturity and fruit-
fulness; or part in promise and foretaste, as the resurrection
of the body and the life everlasting. He who receives Christ
indeed, receives “ all things pertaining to life and godliness.”
“ Whom he did predestinate, them he also called ; whom he
called, them he also justified ; whom he justified, them he also
glorified.” — Rom. viii. 30. Is not glorification here declared
394
The Higher Life
[July
to have been conferred on the elect, concurrently with justifi-
cation, and in terms as completely implying what is already,
in some sense, as really done or effected as justification, and as
surely indicative of its full accomplishment, as are ever used
with reference to our full salvation, or any part of it, even
personal holiness or sanctification itself? But no one not
fanatically blinded will pretend that heavenly glory is our por-
tion in this life, or is ours on earth otherwise than in the per-
fect title to it secured by justification, and the preparation for
it begun in regeneration and conversion, and carried forward
in our progressive sanctification.
No passage of Scripture can prove sinless perfection in this
life, which is indisputably addressed and applied to those who
are confessedly imperfect or defiled with any- remainder of sin.
But the great majority of professing Christians, whom perfec-
tionists allow to be real Christians according to the judgment
of charity on the one hand, and to be imperfect in holiness on
the other, are addressed or referred in nearly if not quite all
the passages habitually quoted as proving sinless perfection
in this life. Thus, the passage I John iii : 9: “Whosoever
is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in
him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God,” and other
less emphatic declarations in the context, must be so interpret-
ed as to be true, whatever else they may signify, of all Christian
people — all who are “born of God.” But confessedly the
most of these come short of the sinless perfection claimed for
a few. The sense in which such cannot sin, because the seed
of grace and holiness remaineth in them, is that they cannot
sin prevailingly, persistently, with full purpose, allowance, or
without resistance and repentance. They cannot sin in such
wise that “ sin shall have dominion over them,” or that holi-
ness shall not be the ascendant, and increasingly ascendant
principle within them, until at death its victory over sin is ab-
solutely complete and exterminating. It is all solved by the
nature of the Christian conflict between the flesh and spirit, so
graphically depicted, Gal. v : 17, and Rom. vii : 14-25, which Y
however we may find it hard to harmonize with the psychol-
ogy or metaphysics any may have engrafted on their theology,
finds its response and counterpart in normal Christian experi-
ence. All Christians know what it means to have the flesh
1 877-]
and Christian Perfection.
395
lusting against the spirit, so that in a sense they “ cannot do
the things they would.” While they “ delight in the law of
God after the inward man,” still they do what they allow
not, and yet, amazing paradox ! in a sense, it is no more they
“ that do it, but sin that dwelleth in them,” and then, whether
we can explain it or not, it is the man himself who with the
mind serves the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.
It is the same Ego, or self, that is tainted with the sin, against
which it strives, going on from conquering yet to conquer it,
and at last, through grace, utterly extinguishing it.
Another climacteric text adduced by perfectionists is Eph.
v : 25, 26, 27: “ Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also
loved the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might
cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word ; that he
might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and with-
out blemish.” It is undeniable that this applies to the church
of the saved and redeemed, militant and triumphant ; to all
real Christians, as representing their state already attained or
to be attained. But inasmuch as confessedly in the militant
state the great body of Christians are not yet without spot,
wrinkle or blemish, it follows that this passage does not prove
any present sinless perfection in this world, but only in the
future life.
If perfectionism derives no support from texts of this tenor,
much less does it derive any from passages ascribing, promising
or enjoining holiness or sanctification upon the people of God.
Yet passages of this scope and tenor are constantly and freely
quoted in behalf of sinless perfection. Its advocates speak and
argue as if holiness and sanctification belonged to them alone,
and were distinctive of them in contrast to the whole church
besides ; and generally as if it became theirs, not at ftlieir orig-
inal, but at some second conversion. This notion of a second
conversion, which introduces to the “ higher life ” of sinless
purity, is maintained expressly by such writers as Boardman in
“ Higher Christian Life,” and in substance by all the Higher
Life and Perfectionist school. And they are very apt to rep-
resent it as simply an entrance upon, or attainment, or begin-
ning, of sanctification or holiness. They even use these terms
as the very titles of their books and treatises in advocacy of
396
The Higher Life
[July,
the attainableness of sinless perfection. Thus, the title of one
of the best of these books, by a leading Methodist divine, Rev.
J. T. Crane, D.D., is “ Holiness the Birthright of God’s Chil-
dren.” Rev. J. A. Wood, author of a work on “ Perfect Love,”
in his volume on “Purity and Maturity,” says : “ Purity or holi-
ness, significant of quality, implies entirety. It does not mean a
mixture of purity and pollution, partly clean and partly de-
filed ” (p. 25). Binney, in his “ Theological Compend Im-
proved,” under the head entitled “Holiness — Sanctifica-
tion,” says : “ This state ... is called holiness, sanctification,
purity, perfection, fulness of God and of Christ and of the
Holy Ghost, and full assurance of faith. What is meant by
these expressions is that participation of the divine nature
which excludes all original depravity or inbred sin from the
heart, and fills it with perfect love to God and man — perfect
love, the unction of the Holy One, and the baptism of the
Holy Ghost ” (p. 128).
According to this, none can be holy or sanctified who have
any remains of “ original depravity or inbred sin,” or less than
“ perfect love to God and man.” At this rate all Christians,
all who have experienced the new birth, must be in this elevat-
ed state. So he proceeds to tell us, “Holiness begins when
the principle of purity — namely, love to God — is shed abroad in
the heart in the new birth.” And yet he immediately adds :
“But entire sanctification is that act of the Holy Ghost where-
by the justified soul is made holy. This instantaneous work of
the sanctifier is usually preceded and followed by a gradual
growth in grace. The Spirit certifies this purification." — 1 Cor.
11, 12. Can there be greater confusion and self contradiction
than this? Holiness and sanctification are defined to be “per-
fect love yet holiness — i.e., perfect love — begins at the new
birth ; wtfile “ entire sanctification ” comes later by an instanta-
neous work of the sanctifier, “ usually preceded and followed
by a gradual growth in grace.” How does “ perfect love ” differ
from “ entire sanctification ? ” And what room remains for
growth in grace beyond “ entire sanctification ? ” This, by the
way, is one specimen of the enormous inconsistencies into
which perfectionists and higher life advocates run, of which we
shall see many more as we go on.
Among all the adherents of this doctrine since the Quietists
1877-]
and Christian Perfection.
397
and Mystics of a former age, we rarely find any more refined,
cultured, disciplined, endowed with natural and acquired
strength of mind, delicacy of taste, and vigor of spiritual graces,
than the late T. C. Upham, Professor of Mental Science in
Bowdoin College, and author of popular text-books on that
subject, as well as of publications on this peculiar type of what
he styled the “ Interior Life.” He, if any who catch the mag-
netism of the converts to this theory, should have been supe-
rior, not only to all shams and impostures, all cant, hypocrisy
and affectation, but to all loose bandying of the catch-words
and watchwords which form the shibboleths of sects, parties
and self-exalting coteries. He speaks of “ the true idea of
Christian perfection or holiness” as if such perfection were the
only holiness,” also of being “ sanctified unto the Lord,” as
being identical with the “ blessing of perfect love ” ( Pioneer
Experiences , pp. 96, 97) ; also of coming “ ultimately to the un-
doubting conclusion that God required me to be holy, that he
had made provision for it, and that it was both my duty and
my privilege to be so. The establishment of my belief in this
great doctrine was followed by a number of pleasing and im-
portant results.” — Id. p. 91. It could not be otherwise — if, in-
deed, it was a discovery for the first time that God requires
and makes provision for holiness in his people. Of course the
only holiness which could have been the subject of such dis-
covery is that which is sinless. Whence it appears that a large
part of the arguments and pretensions of this school fall to the
ground, unless the holiness and sanctification of the Bible al-
ways mean sinless perfection ; and hence, that all true Chris-
tians are sinless, which these same people do not even claim to
be true of more than a small part of them.
Closely connected with all this is the constant confounding
of sanctification with justification ; of inherent with imputed
or forensic righteousness; of the cleansing from the guilt, or
condemnation to the punishment of sin, with the cleansing
from its power and pollution. Justification is instantaneous
and complete upon the first act of faith in Christ or vital union
to Him. In its nature, justification is entire, or not at all. “He
that believeth shall no more come into condemnation, but
hath passed from death unto life.” There is indeed “ no more
condemnation to those that are' in Christ Jesus, who walk not
39^
The Higher Life
[July,
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Sanctification, on the
other hand, is begun in infantile yet prevailing strength at
conversion, and advances by a gradual and progressive growth,
in which the new-born soul goes forward, “having these prom-
ises, to cleanse itself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God so always cleansing
stains which, although thus growing less, yet still remain in
this decreasing form to be contended against till they are
wholly expunged.
Now, how often is this declaration, and others the like, that
Jesus, “ by one offering hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified,” quoted in favor of perfect and sinless sanctification
in this life? Yet, to this construction it is a fatal objection,
that it applies to all the sanctified, all who are saved through
Christ’s offering. But of these it is allowed that the vast ma-
jority have not become thus sinless. The perfecting, therefore,
must relate to that which is at once made perfect by the offer-
ing of Christ, viz., justification. This is conceded on all hands
to be perfect from first to last, whatever may or may not be
the sense of it in the believer’s consciousness. So the declar-
ations, i John i: 7-9, “That the blood of Jesus Christ his Son
cleanseth us from all sin,” and that “ if we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness,” obviously refer to justification as the im-
mediate and finished result of the application of this blood,
and only indirectly to sanctification which accompanies justi-
fication, at first initial and germinant, but gradually carried
forward to perfect sinlessness in heaven ; for the 8th verse de-
clares, to the utter discomfiture of any perfectionism founded
in this passage, “ If we say we have no sin, we deceive our-
selves, and the truth is not in us.” So all promises of cleans-
ing refer to that washing away of sins in the blood of the
Lamb which consists in perfect justification, or to progressive
cleansing of the pollution of sin by gradual sanctification. To
this latter the command to cleanse ourselves refers; charging
us to “ purify ourselves in obeying the truth through the Spirit,”
not as a thing yet finished, but always progressing ; so that what-
ever be our assurance of hope, he that hath this hope must be
ever purifying himself, “ even as God is pure.” One source of
obscurity and confusion on this subject, therefore, is the ten-
1 877-]
and Christian Perfection.
399
dency of many of the Higher Life persuasion more or less to
confound justification with sanctification.
Perhaps the strongest pleas are those founded on the Biblical
use of the words “ perfect,” “ blameless,” or their equivalents,,
in reference to the people of God. But that these words are
used in various senses, some of them not implying absolute sin-
lessness, is too plain to admit of plausible denial. Even the
injunction so often quoted by the perfectionists, that “ having
these promises we cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” implies
that this process of perfecting is to go on, and is therefore not
yet finished. It implies that the normal Christian life here
consists in having the ideal of perfect holiness before the eye
of faith, and constantly working toward it, ever approaching*
but not reaching it this side of heaven. And this is the only
way in which we can consistently interpret Phil, iii : 12, 15, in
the former of which the Apostle explicitly says: “Not as
though I had already attained, or were already perfect ; but I
follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am appre-
hended of Christ Jesus;” while in the latter, his words are:
“ Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.”
Here it is clear that “perfect ” means truly apprehending and
struggling toward the standard of perfection in holiness, which*
in the former, he represents himself as not having yet attained.
Not different is the meaning of the word, Eph. iv : 12, where
he represents the ministry as given inter alia “ for the perfect-
ing of the saints.” What else does this mean but that they
are instruments employed to constantly advance the saints to-
ward that holiness which befits the atmosphere of heaven ?
Perfection is also applied to Christian character to denote,
not sinlessness, but the elements and constituent parts of Chris-
tian character in due proportion and symmetry. So James, i :
4: “That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
Then it is often used like the word blameless, to mean inward
sincerity and a life outwardly irreproachable in the sight of
men, as when it is said of Noah, that “ he was perfect ; ” of
Job, that “he was perfect and upright; one that feared God
and eschewed evil ” — Job i. This is precisely the equivalent of
the description given of Zacharias and Elizabeth — Luke i : 6 :
“ That they were both righteous before God, walking in all the
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The Higher Life
[July,
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”
Here the inward righteousness before God was evinced by the
visible blameless walk in the ways of God, without any breach
■or deviation obnoxious to human censure. It is precisely the
equivalent of the phraseology applied to Christians as such —
Phil, ii : 14, 15: “Do all things without murmuring and dis-
puting, that ye may be blameless and harmless — the sons of
God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding
forth the word of life.” Surely this points to a kind of excel-
lence which, while bringing honor to Christ and his religion,
implies no sinless perfection. While these terms, as employed
thus, denote a relative perfection in the sense of uprightness,
integrity, a conscientious and exemplary life, or of wholeness
and symmetry of the Christian virtues, or of mature growth,
as when it is said the stony ground hearers bring forth no fruit
unto perfection, they do not mean to assert sinless perfection
of any saints on earth. Indeed, it is so demonstrable that the
term “ perfect ” is often used in various senses in the Bible
that perfectionists themselves are constrained to confess it,
and thus virtually to acknowledge that it does not of itself im-
port present sinlessness unless the surrounding context and
the analogy of faith require it. Thus, Mr. See says (Rest of
Faith , p. 72): “We merely say of another term, which is Chris-
tian perfection, that if the candid reader will refer to the Epis-
tle to the Philippians, third chapter, he will find the word
“ perfect ” used in two senses. The one referring to our res-
urrection perfection (verse 12), and the other (verse 15) refer-
ring to the Christian perfection, which we must conclude was
preached, professed, and lived in Apostolic times. But how
does it appear that the latter was sinless?
Two passages are constantly quoted in behalf of the doctrine
we combat, which show the impossibility of always attaching
the literal or any other one sense to words used in Scripture.
This arises from the poverty and ambiguity of language which
compel us to use words In varied senses, to be determined in
each case by its proper exegetic law. We refer to the use of
“ fear” in the passages, “ perfect love casteth out fear,” and the
injunction that we “perfect holiness in the fear of God.”
The latter fear belongs to those who are perfecting holiness
1877-]
and Christian Perfection.
401
at every stage of their progress, and belongs to the very es-
sence of religion in both worlds. It is mingled with filial love
and trust, takes the form of reverence, and comes of that
grace whereby we serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear — terms which are equivalent. The former is des-
cribed in the context as that slavish “ fear which hath tor-
ment ; ” which is none other than that spirit of bondage which
is unto fear — i. e., servile fear, which is a repelling dread, in-
stead of a confiding, revering, attracting love. Love in pro-
portion to its perfection exorcises this fell spirit in all its forms
and remnants ; but it is not asserted that this love becomes
perfect in this life, or if so, that sinless perfection is meant.
Much is said of “entire sanctification,” and 1 Thess. v:
23, is constantly quoted as proving it in the sense of sinless
perfection in this life : “ And the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly ; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be pre-
served blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The wholeness of our sanctification refers to all the parts of
our being, body, soul, and spirit, as the context shows, and
may signify its future progressive as well as its immediate ac-
complishment. Enough has already been said in regard to
the Biblical import of the word “blameless” in the final
clause.
If there are no scriptural proofs of sinless perfection in this
life, there are abundant and decisive scriptural proofs against
it, not so much in isolated texts— though these are not want-
ing—as in the whole tone and drift of the inspired portraitures
of Christian experience. “ If we say we have no sin, we de-
ceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” — 1 John i : 8. “ If
I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: If I say
I am perfect, it shall prove me perverse.” This could not be
true of the claims to any but sinless perfection, as other kinds
of perfection are freely ascribed to the faithful servants of
God. The Lord’s prayer is for all Christians of every age and
nation. It is therefore their duty always to pray, “forgive our
trespasses, even as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
It has been the comfort and support of the most eminent
saints that this prayer is always acceptable to God and becom-
ing in his children. Baxter is said to have rejoiced on his dying
bed that the publican’s prayer, “ God be merciful to me a sin-
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tier,” is never unacceptable to God. Christians are always laying
aside every weight (the impedimenta coming upon them from
the world, the flesh, and the devil), and the “ sin which so easily
besets them ” — (Heb. xii) ; and “ striving against sin,” if need
be, “ resisting it even unto blood.” — ver. 4.
Moreover, that chastisement which is the indispensable
badge of sonship, without which all pretended sons are but
bastards, is for sin — not for sins long past, repented of, and
given up, but for present sins ; not indeed for vengeance and
destruction, but in fatherly love and faithfulness for our salva-
tion— “ for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holi-
ness.” This shows that sin still cleaves to all the sons of God,
for which they need divine discipline and chastisement in order
to its correction and removal ; a chastening which they must
not despise on the one hand, nor faint or despair under on the
other, unless they would miss its saving benefits. But what
less than remaining sin in all the sons of God does all this im-
ply? And how does perfectionism consist with that chastise-
ment of which all but bastards are partakers?
The Christian conflict so vividly depicted — Gal. v: 17, and
Rom. vii : 14, 25 — is proof incontestible of the remains of the
aaftB, still warring against the spiritual man, producing all
manner of paradoxical antagonisms in the soul ; but involving
also phenomena impossible in the unregenerate soul. For in
what unregenerate soul does the spirit lust against the flesh?
At all events, was it not to the experience of the churches of
Galatia, consisting of professed Christian converts, that he was
writing ?
And after all the efforts to torture Rom. vii. into a mere
picture of the phenomena of an unregenerate soul, has it ever
been plausibly shown how such can truly say, “ I love the law
of God after the inward man ; ” “ with the mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” “ O
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body
of this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
If this is the language of impenitent unbelievers, where shall we
find what is distinctive of the new-born soul? Do we need
more evidence that the flesh, and sin in itself, as well as the out-
side world, are among the foes with which the Church militant
must ever contend ?
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and Christian Perfection.
403
If we do, it is furnished abundantly in the statements, un-
foldings, and defences of sinless perfection given by its advo-
cates, whether they reach it from the Pelagian, Arminian, An-
tinomian, Romish, or Mystic sides. Some of these frequently
run or develop from and into each other.
One and all, they are, or come to be, essentially Antinomian.
This is a grave charge. It suffices to overthrow the whole of
them, not only as in absolute antagonism to Christ’s teaching
and standard, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill
and establish it in every jot and tittle thereof, but as in and of
itself, however it may often be counteracted by other influences,
tending to foster looseness and apostasy in life. When we say
that they are essentially Antinomian, we do not mean that
their abettors call them such. Some of them, like John Wes-
ley, even warn its adherents against Antinomianism. And
many of them have no suspicion that the scheme logically or
practically involves such a taint. What we maintain, how-
ever, is, that its advocates really take Antinomian ground ;
that they in one form or another lower the standard of perfect
holiness below the only perfect and immutable standard of
goodness — i. e., the divine law — to some vague and indetermi-
nate level, depending on and varying with the subjective states
of each person who supposes himself to be perfect. With
many — we believe with most — each one’s assertion of his own
Christian perfection is to be taken and treated as proof of it,
unless contradicted by unmistakable impieties or immoralities.
The essential thing is, that the perfection claimed and insisted
on is not in conformity to the original, true, and only law of
God, but to some lower, yet undefined, standard level to the
infirmities and incapacities of our present fallen and debased
state. This is enough ; but it is much worse to leave us with-
out any tangible and clear definition of the infirmities that do
and do not involve sin.
1. The Romish theory of perfection lowers the original
strictness of the law of God not only as it pronounces evil
concupiscence to be no longer of the nature of sin, as the law
declares in forbidding it (Rom. vii : 7), but as it allows for the
tolerance of minor or venial, in distinction from mortal sins.
Thus it provides for an easy perfection among the “ mass and
file” of its average members, whose lives show a very imper-
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feet perfection in holiness, while it makes room for an extra-
legal perfection in the select classes of its saints, who by monas-
tic vows and discipline, or other volunteer penances and self-
inflictions, strive thus to mortify the inclinations and remove
the temptations to sin. This they rank as an extra-legal per-
fection, which consists of works of supererogation and surplus
merit, out of which such enormous mischiefs to morals and re-
ligion have arisen. This was a process originally devised to
mortify the flesh and subdue or extirpate its evil concupiscen ce,
so as to make an end of its antagonism to the law. But when
they adopted the dogma that concupiscence had not the nature
of sin, thus reducing the demands of the law to this level, they
raised the monastic and other equivalent discipline and volunteer
self-inflictions to the rank of extra-perfect living and surplus
merit. They denominated the super-legal rules prescribing this
discipline “ evangelical counsels.” in contradistinction to the
mere requirements of the law, thus reduced from its original
strictness, conformity to which constituted ordinary Christian
perfection. This perfection pervades the good acts of the
faithful, so that they, each and all, are entirely holy, but is
compatible at the same time with venial sins intervening be-
tween them, which appear to be acts forbidden by the original
law of God, and therefore requiring pardon, and making the
petition in the Lord’s prayer always appropriate ; but never-
theless not bringing under condemnation according to the law
as reduced to the present level of human infirmity, and so not
bringing the soul into jeopardy. That they hold good works
of Christians to be sinless, the following utterance of the Coun-
cil of Trent evinces : “ Si quis in quolibet bono opere justum
saltern venaliter peccare dixerit . . . anathema sit.” The
reason of this is, that while perfect love constitutes the extra-
perfection of select saints to which we have referred, a mere
defect of such perfection of love in ordinary saints is not held
to be of the nature of sin, or to impart any taint of sin to works
destitute of it. Bellarmin, as quoted by Dr. Hodge, says :
“ Defectus charitatis, quod videlicet non faciemus opera nos-
tra tanto fervore dilectionis, quanto faciemus in patria defectus
quidem est, sed culpa et peceatum non est. U nde etiam charitas
nostra, quamvis comparata ad charitatem beatorum sit imper-
fecta, tamen absolute perfecta dici potest.” Perfectionism,
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and Christian Perfection .
405
therefore, as maintained by the Romanists, lowers the law of
God to the infirmities and defects of our present state, and
thus destroys its authority. The perfection it advocates is not
even a pretence of sinless conformity to that law. Nor does
it lay down any clear line of demarcation between what is or
what is not now obligatory in that law ; or show us the precise
level of the requirements of the law they now recognize as our
binding rule of action. They gain perfect holiness not by lift-
ing men up to the law, but by bringing the law down to them.
See Article Perfectionism , in Hodge’s Theology, vol. III., p.
245, et seq. ; also, Article on The Protestant Doctrine of Evan-
gelical Perfection , in “ British and Evangelical Review” for Jan-
uary, 1876. Another article on the Means and Measzire of
Holiness, in which, inter alia , the higher life views of Mr. and
Mrs. Pearsall Smith are sifted, is worthy of attention. The
sum of the whole is, that the difference between the Reformed
and Romanists about perfection has its root in a difference as
to what is sin, and how far the divine law is now in force. Had
the latter our views of these things, the claim of perfection
would sink in the outcry, “ Lord, if thou wert strict to mark
iniquities, who could stand ? ” And we see in this, as we
shall in other schemes to be noticed, the amazing incongruity
of a theory demanding forgiveness and atonement for sinless
and faultless conduct. Its supporters establish and annul the
divine law in the same breath.
2. We find the same Antinomian element in the Arminian type
of perfectionism which we take up before the Pelagian, be-
cause, though not first in original historical development, it has
been more prominent in the Protestant churches, chiefly as
being a prime article of Wesleyan Methodism. Wesley says :
“The best of men still need Christ in his priestly office to
atone for their omissions, their shortcomings (as some not im-
properly speak), their mistakes in judgment and practice, and
their defects of various kinds. For these are all deviations
from the perfect law, and consequently need an atonement.
Yet, that they are not properly sins, we apprehend may ap-
pear from the words of St. Paul: ‘ He that loveth hath ful-
filled the law, for love is the fulfilling of the law.’ — Rom. xiii :
10. Now, mistakes and whatever infirmities naturally flow
from the corruptible state of the body are no way contrary to
(New Series , No. 22.) 26
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[July,
love, nor, therefore, in the Scriptural sense, sin.” It would
seem from this that the doctrine is, that love is so the fulfilling-
of the law that where it exists, in whatever degree, perfection
exists, and there can be no infirmities or faults which are prop-
erly “sin.”
Yet he cannot abide by this, and goes on : “ To explain my-
self a little further on this head : I. Not only sin properly so
called — that is, voluntary transgression of a known law ; but
sin improperly so-called — that is, involuntary transgression of
a divine law, known or unknown, needs the atoning blood. 2.
I believe there is no such perfection in this life as excludes
these involuntary transgressions, which I apprehend to be nat-
urally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable
from mortality. 3. Therefore, sinless perfection is a phrase I
never use lest I should seem to contradict myself. 4. I be-
lieve a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these
involuntary transgressions. 5. Such involuntary' transgres-
sions you may call sins if you please ; I do not, for the reasons
above mentioned.”— Plain Account of Christian Perfection ,
Wesley’s works, vol. I., pp. 28-9 ; Harper’s edition, 1834.
The confusing and groundless distinctions here set forth in
support of this scheme are enough to throw suspicion upon it,
even if they could be sustained, as they cannot be in any de-
gree which will make them serve their purpose. What is un-
deniable is, that the perfection maintained is below some
requirements of the divine law known or unknown to its pos-
sessor ; that his transgressions of, or want of conformity to, the
same require to be atoned for by Christ’s blood ; that he will
neither venture to call these sins, nor the normal state to which
they belong one of sinless perfection ; that all sins arising from
ignorance are of this innocent character, which does not mar
the Christian perfection contended for ; that in these are in-
cluded those arising “ from the corruptible state of the body,”
which, when we consider the mysterious union of soul and
body, and the implication of the moral states and actings of the
former with those of the latter, have a vast, undefined reaefq
excluding, who can tell what, actions from the category of sin?
What of the acts arising from a drunkard’s appetite, the “ eyes
full of adultery,” the “ feet swift to shed blood,” the “ poison
of asps under the lips,” of the very flesh itself, which, though
1877.]
and Christian Perfection.
407
not meaning the body simply, mean the whole man as impli-
cated with, affecting, and affected by the body, lusting against
the spirit, so that no less a saint than Paul, therewith, to some
extent at least, still “ served the law of sin ? ”
Then, as to faults and wrongs committed, or duties omitted,
through ignorance. Some of our most dangerous sins are sins
of ignorance. Nay, the very ignorance of moral and Christian
duty is itself often most culpable, and incurs the divine con-
demnation, even the woe upon those who call good evil and
evil good ; who put light for darkness and darkness for light.
It is the very essence of sin to be deceitful, to disguise itself,
to hate the light, and refuse to come to the light which would
unveil it — and is not this declared by the Light of the world to
be eminently its condemnation ? What ! do men become in-
nocent by blinding themselves to their guilt, and sinless by
ignoring their sin ? Paul “verily thought that he ought to do
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Can
a man be innocent and perfect in persecuting the Church, what-
ever his ignorance or sincerity therein ? Out upon such casu-
istry, no matter how plausible and acceptable it may be to a
worldly and backslidden church, or those who think they are
something when they are nothing, or who “ say they are per-
fect,” by whatsoever names sanctioned !
And as to the distinction of voluntary and involuntary trans-
gressions or shortcomings, who can know where this will lead
us until we have a clear definition of the terms to show
whether it and its corresponding adjectives are used, as was
common down to the days of Edwards and Reid, for all the
non-cognitive powers of the soul, including moral habits and
states, or in the more restricted later meaning of many, in
which it excludes not merely the cognitive, but the sensitive,
affectional, appetitive, or orectic — all the optative powers of
the soul, even in regard to moral and spiritual duties, but that
of deliberate choice? If so, there is no end to the deformities
and sins which may consist with this sort of perfection, and
which even the Romanists would find it hard to pass over as
venial sins.
In all this, Wesley simply goes in the track of the leading
Arminian divines. Limborch, as quoted by Dr. Hodge, in the
chapter already referred to, styles this obedience “ perfect as
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[July,
being, correspondent to the stipulation contained in the divine
covenant.” “ It is not a sinless or absolutely perfect obedi-
ence, but such as consists in a sincere love and habit of piety,
which excludes all habits of sin, with all enormous and deliber-
ate actions.” But it does not, according to this, exclude all
sins. So Fletcher and others are quoted to the same effect.
“ With respect to the Christless law of paradisaic obedience,
we utterly disclaim sinless perfection.” “ We shall not be
judged by that law, but by a law adapted to our present state
and circumstances, called the law of Christ.” What ! is this law
of Christ laxer than the original law of God, and who will de-
fine it so that imperfect conformity to it may be certainly
known and tested ?
Recent Arminian and Wesleyan writers take a similar posi-
tion. Thus, Binney’s Improved Theological Compend teaches :
“ Errors of judgment, infirmities of body, fears occasioned by
surprise, unpleasant dreams, wandering thoughts in prayer,
times when there is no joy, a sense of insufficiency in Christian
labor, and strong temptation, are by no means inconsistent
with perfect love. Yet errors need the atonement” (p. 132).
So the late Bishop Janes, in his introduction to the book enti-
tled Pioneer Experiences , says that “ while entire sanctification
makes us perfect Christians, it does not make us perfect men.
Our bodies have been greatly impaired by the fall. We are
encompassed with infirmities. Our knowledge is imperfect ;
our judgment fallible. We shall need the reconstruction of
the judgment day to make us perfect men. But, thank God,
His grace can make us perfect Christians, now and here” (p.
9). The distinction between perfect Christians and perfect
men, in a moral sense, we understand to be that between those
who keep the original and perfect law of God, and those who
keep some supposed and undefined relaxation of it, called the
law of Christ or the Gospel. Conformity to this relaxed
standard is the perfection claimed.
Dr. Crane, in the little volume already referred to, so appre-
hends the difficulties of thus holding to a perfection that is not
perfect, that he sets himself to discover and remove the cause of
Wesley and others of this school being thrown into an atti-
tude so weak and vacillating. He finds it in Wesley s still
retaining in his creed that clause of the Anglican articles which
1877-]
and Christian Perfection.
409
asserts that “ this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them
that are regenerated.” He thinks it essential to any consist-
ent holding of the doctrine of perfection that this be aban-
doned. He is not far wrong. It is difficult to maintain the
co-existence of a corrupt /^perfection of nature with sinless
perfection, without lowering the divine requirements so as to
take this “ infection” and its fruits out of the category of
sin, or sinful imperfections, while yet conceding that they are
contrary to the original and perfect law of God. But notwith-
standing the protestation of Dr. Crane, the evidence is pain-
fully abundant that this “ infection” does remain in the best
of men. And those know it most who know themselves best.
On the other hand, if no such infection remains in the regen-
erate, it is difficult to see how their sanctification is not entire,
and why each and every regenerate person is not perfectly
sinless. This contradicts his doctrine, that a large proportion
of Christians are yet imperfect, and that entire sanctification is
rarely attained at the beginning of the Christian life. This
book of Dr. Crane is mainly a critique on Wesley’s modes of
stating and defending perfection. He is successful in expos-
ing their weakness and fallacy ; but we do not see that his
own position is any stronger. This is not his fault. The fault
lies in the nature of the doctrine itself. It runs so counter to
Scripture and normal Christian experience that it admits of no
strong and consistent statement and defense. Hence we are
not surprised when Dr. Crane tells us that —
“ Hardly one in twenty of our ministers professes it, either publicly or
privately, so far as I can learn. We preach it occasionally ; but among our
people its confessors are still fewer, in proportion to members, than in the
ministry. Even among our bishops, from 1784 to the present day, con-
fessors are as hard to find as in any other class of our people. The very
princes of our Israel have been silent in regard to their own experience of it.
The apostolic Wesley never professed it. In the sixty-fourth year of his age
and the forty-second of his ministry he published in one of the leading jour-
nals of London a letter containing these words : ‘ I have told all the world
1 am not perfect j I have not attained the character I draw.’ Bishop As-
bury, who, if possible, exceeded Wesley in the toils and sufferings of his
fruitful ministry, did not profess it. The saintly Hedding, approaching the
grave by lingering disease, always calm, and often joyous in view of death,
was importuned to profess it, and declined. Myriads of men and women
among us, whose lives were bright with a holy light, saints of whom the
world was not worthy, never professed it”. — Pp. 14, 15.
4io The Higher Life [July,
Even so ; and this no way to their detriment, however it
may be to the doctrine of sinless perfection here below.
3. If we examine the Pelagian or semi-Pelagian doctrine of
Perfection we shall find it equally in derogation of the contin-
ued authority of the divine law. The essential difference be-
tween this and the Arminian is, that the latter asserts that
the ability, be it natural or moral, to render such obedience as
is required by the law of Christ and constitutes Christian Per-
fection, is itself largely the result of a gracious assistance given
to reinforce the weakness induced by the fall. The law is low-
ered and our weakness strengthened, until our increased ability
and God’s reduced requirements meet and become commen-
surate. The Pelagian theory, however, maintains that our nat-
ural powers in their native moral state ar e, per se, adequate to
fulfill the demands of the law ; that no law can be binding, i.e.,
be a law, w’hich surpasses our full ability without divine aid
to keep it. Pelagius himself accordingly held that the fall did
not debilitate our moral powers, and that they still remain,
equal to keeping the law in its original, unabated strictness.
The evident opposition between this view of the present con-
dition of human nature and the representations of Scripture,
reinforced by both the natural and Christian consciousness, has
rendered it difficult for any but the lowest of Socinian and Ra-
tionalistic divines to entertain or adhere to it. Hence the fun-
damental thesis that no binding law can exceed our ability,
whether natural or moral, is brought to bear in a semi-Pelagian
or Arminian way, to lower the demands of the law to the moral
state and ability of a race lapsed into such weakness. Men are
in some degree corrupted and debilitated by the fall, to be
sure ; but the requirements of the law are accommodated to
their weakness, and they are fully adequate to keep it perfect-
ly ; nor can they be under obligation to obey any law which
they are not fully able perfectly to keep. It is in this line that
perfectionism has been developed in this country by those
whose metaphysical or philosophical views in theology made
this the most obvious route to sinless perfection. When we
were students in theology, a little coterie, becoming wiser than
their teachers or fellow-students, strained the doctrine of abil-
ity beyond the scope contended for or admitted by its most
eminent champions, to the length of maintaining, not only that
1 8 77-]
and Christian Perfection.
41 1
all men can, but that some do, reach sinless perfection in this
life, of which, so far as the students there were concerned, a trio
or so were the principal confessors. The net result of the
whole was that the leader, instead of going forward into the
ministry, ran into various socialistic and free-love heresies, on
the basis of which he founded the Putney and Oneida com-
munities, over the latter of which he now presides. Other spo-
radic outbreaks of the distemper appeared here and there in
the Presbyterian and Congregational communions, or among
separatists and come-outers from them, these often uniting
with the radicals or advanced reformers of other communions.
But the only strong and serious development in this line had
for its centre Oberlin, and for its great expositors and defend-
ers Professor Finney and President Mahan. The Oberlin
Evafigelist and Quarterly Review were the organs for propagat-
ing and defending this scheme. These are not now within our
reach, and we are obliged to depend on the undisputed quota-
tions from them in the controversial papers of the time. The
Princeton Review, for April, 1841, p. 241, quotes, from the
Oberlin Evangelist, vol. 2, p. 50, Mr. Finney as saying:
“It is objected that this doctrine (of perfect sanctification) lowers the
standard of holiness to our own experience. It is not denied that in some
instances this may have been true. Nor can it be denied that the standard
of Christian perfection has been elevated much above the demands of the
law in its application to human beings in our present state of existence. It
seems to have been forgotten that the inquiry is, What does the law de-
mand?— not of angels, and what would be entire sanctification in them ; nor
of Adam previously to the fall, when his powers of body and mind were all
in a state of perfect health ; nor what will the law demand of us in a future
state of existence ; not what the law may demand of the church in some fu-
ture periods of its history on earth, when the human constitution, by the
universal prevalence of thorough temperance principles, may have acquired
its pristine health and powers ; but the question is, What does the law of
God require of Christians in the present generation, of Christians in all re-
spects in our circumstances, with all the ignorance and debility of body and
mind which have resulted from the intemperance and abuse of the human
constitution through so many generations ?
“ The law levels its claims to us as we are, and a just exposition of it, as I
have already said, under all the present circumstances of our being, is indis-
pensable to a right apprehension of what constitutes entire sanctification.”
Unmistakably this asserts that the law lowers its claims to
our strength as debilitated by sin and corruption. But when is
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The Higher Life
[July,
this process of deterioration to stop, which, it has been well
said, makes sin “ its own remedy and apology”? It is easy
enough to be perfectly sanctified, according to such a standard.
Can any one tell how far men, by sinning, may become enslaved
to sin, without making this very servitude, the very invincible-
ness and obduracy of sin, their own apology, whether in this
world or the realms of outer darkness? Or is there any lower
deep beneath this lowest deep in which this ceases to be? It
is obvious on the face of the foregoing presentation why this
form of Antinomianism may, like that of the Romanists, lead
to a certain outward ascetic as well as inward looseness in its
regimen and cultus.
But another strange result was logically reached by over-
straining what was formerly known as the “ Exercise Scheme”
to extreme consequences wholly unlooked for, and repudiated
by many of its supporters. Said Mr. Finney, Ob. Evan., vol
I., p. 42., et passim :
“ It seems to be a very general opinion that there is such a thing as im-
perfect obedience to God, i. e., as respects one and the same act, but I
cannot see how an imperfect obedience relating to one and the same act
can be possible. Imperfect obedience.' What can be meant by this but
disobedient obedience ! A sinful holiness Now, to decide the character of
any act, we must bring it into the light of the law of God; if agreeable to
the law, it is obedience — it is right — wholly right. If it is in any respect
different from what the law of God requires, it is wrong — wholly wrong."
According to this there is no medium between a state of
perfect sinlessness on the one hand, and perfect impenitence
on the other. The soul is liable to alternations from one to
the other each successive moment, and with each transient in-
stantaneous volition. No enduring moral bias deeper than
such momentary volitions is recognized. And as each of
these follows each, he may soar one moment to the summit
of absolute perfection, to plunge the next moment to the
abyss of carnal obduracy. This is no unfair interpretation of
this system by an adversary. It is precisely that given by a
leader in Higher Life teaching, when comparing and endeavor-
ing to harmonize into substantial unity the theoretical grounds
adopted by different classes of its advocates. Says Boardman,
Higher Life , pp. 61-2 :
“ For the Oberlinian idea that the experience brings the soul into a state
of sinless perfection or entire sanctification the grounds must be sought in
1 877-]
and Christian Perfection.
413
three things : first, their philosophy of the will, according to which each
volition or choice is in itself absolutely holy, or absolutely unholy and
altogether so. So that when God is chosen, while that choice is predom-
inant, the soul is perfectly holy ; and when the world is chosen, then while
that choice is uppermost, then the soul is perfectly sinful. This, with their
view of the law of God as graduated to the sinner’s condition, whatever it
is, not requiring of all alike the same entire conformity to the absolute and
unchangeable standard of heavenly holiness, but claiming no more than the
sinner’s earthly blindness permits him to see, and no more than his earthly
weakness permits him to do. And to these two a third must be added : viz.,
their definition of sanctification, according to which it is consecration only —
or setting apart to God — and so is man’s own work, instead of God’s.
Whereas, according to the popular acceptation, sanctification is the work of
God in the soul after it is set apart to God by voluntary consecration.
These three things taken together, and taken together with the experience,
may serve to show us why and how the Oberlinians adopt the terms and
accept the idea of ‘ entire sanctification’ as attained in the experience.”
If the Antinomian character of this system, in its different
forms and potencies, has been proved, then it makes out sinless
perfection by lowering the divine law to men. It is also certain
that not only can its advocates take and hold no uniform
and consistent position on the subject, or draw any clear line
between the perfectly and the imperfectly sanctified, but much
of their reasoning is to the effect that all Christians are entire-
ly sanctified. This is the necessary consequence of the Ober-
linian dogmatic which acknowledges no holy act which is not
perfectly holy, but of all arguments in its favor based on Scrip-
tural passages that apply indiscriminately to all the saints.
This is so inevitable that one of the recent treatises on this sub-
ject is written for the express purpose of proving that there is
no conversion from sin save to spotless purity ; that“ sanctifica-
tion admits of no degrees, and is never used in a limited sense
designating degrees of cleanness or purity. If a thing or being
has the least degree of uncleanness or defilement, it is unsanc-
tified.”*
Dr. Crane says: “ The ablest writers who have discussed this
subject, on the residue theory of infection of nature still remain-
ing in the regenerate, have not been able in their descriptions
of the Christian life to maintain a clear, practical distinction
between those who are supposed to be simply regenerate and
*The Old Paths , a Treatise on Sanctification , by Rev. Thomas Mitchell.
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[July,
those who are accounted to be freed from all depravity.” [We
have seen what those are capable of who ignore or fritter
away this infection.] He proves by quotations from Wesley
that he sometimes puts the “ religious state of the sanctified
man below that of one who is simply born of God.” That he
now represents the perfect man as liable to “ something wrong,
in tempers, words and actions,” and now as exceeding the im-
perfect Christian in being “ freed from evil thoughts and evil
tempers.” Dr. Wakefield is quoted by Dr. Crane as saying
that “ entire sanctification does not differ in essence from re-
generation.”— See Holiness the Birthright of God's Children,
pp. 83-86.
But it may be asked, however wrong theoretically and doc.
trinally, must not the effects of such a standard of life as entire
sanctification be benign and purifying? We do not believe that
error can promote holiness. God sanctifies by his truth, and
his word is truth. Important life-giving truths may accident-
ally become associated in the view of many with baneful errors,
and may exert their proper purifying influence, and serve as
an antidote to the errors which accidentally contributed to
give them prominence. We believe that the Millerite delu-
sion prevalent about the year 1843, that the second advent of
Christ was to occur in that year, and on some certain day of
it, was overruled of God to the awakening of many callous
persons from their soul-destroying slumbers to prepare to meet
their God by embracing his salvation. Yet it was a fatal delu-
sion to those who hung their faith upon its truth, while it
served to harden the sceptical and worldly in their inclination
to regard Christianity as mere fanaticism or imposture.
There is no question that, in the minds of many good people,
the higher life movement has a grasp on their consciences and
hearts, owing to its arousing them to recognize and feel the
duty of rising to higher grades of sanctity and consecration,
greater elevation above self and the world. Furthermore, it
is often confounded with that assurance of hope which is the
common privilege of justified persons, who, though imperfectly
sanctified, evince the genuineness of their faith to themselves
and others by their Christian works ; who thus assure their hearts
before God, and know that they know Christ because they
keep his commandments ; who also receive in and through all
!8 77-]
and Christian Perfection.
415
this the witness of the Spirit with their spirits that they are the
children of God. But all these truths, duties and privileges
are better gained and conserved without this pretension of
higher life, and perfect holiness, and assumed superiority to
the great brotherhood of the redeemed, than when burdened
with these fungus parasites. In themselves considered, and
in their own proper influence and tendencies, we regard them
as evil only, and that continually. It is proper to add, more-
over, that not all who join in these higher life movements em-
brace the perfectionism which so largely underlies and perme-
ates them. They are conscious only of arriving simply and
purely at a higher Christian life, and deeper experience. These
constitute the only truth and good accompanying such move-
ments that are likely to give them power.
1. We deem it a great evil for those to think themselves
perfectly holy who are not so, or at best only imperfectly so.
It is an evil which makes a dangerous approach to thinking
themselves something when they are nothing. It fosters spir-
itual pride, and is destructive of humility. It checks or stops
struggles to overcome indwelling sin, and to advance to a
nearer conformity to the divine law. Instead of stimulating us
to forget the things which are behind and press forward to
those which are before, it makes us easy with our present at-
tainments in holiness, “as though we had already attained or
were already perfect.” We are quite aware, and do nof mean
to question, that these people hold to a continual growth in the
Christian life ; but it is such a growth as takes place in heaven
— a growth in general capacity, but not in moral purity or free-
dom from sin. This is already perfect, and cannot be more
than perfect. So they no longer need to die unto sin. It is
already extinct within them. It is as if in our investigations
of truth we should take remaining ignorance for perfect and
infallible knowledge.
2. Closely connected with this is the denial and stoppage of
growth in sanctification by struggling toward its entireness
and perfection and ever making closer approximations to it,
till all sin disappears in the spirits of the just made perfect.
The favorite doctrine of these people is, that as perfect justifi-
cation is received at the new birth by the initial act of faith, so,
at some later period, perfect sanctification is received instanta-
416
The Higher Life
[July,
neously by a single act of faith. And this is variously styled
the rest of faith, the rest of the soul, &c., &c., implying that
the soul rests at peace in its reliance on Christ for sanctifi-
cation as well as justification, and this in such a sense as to be
freed from the necessity of working to promote holiness, and sub-
due sin within us, in the same way and measure as in our justi-
fication, which is wholly by faith to the exclusion of all works
of our own. “ Thus,” says one of these writers, “ sanctifica-
tion, like regeneration, is a supernatural, instantaneous work ;
and not a human, gradual work. Both are God’s work. Both
are instantaneous.” — Purity and Maturity, p. 223. “There is
no gradual growing out of sin.” — Id. p. 145. This is very unsafe
teaching. The constant teaching of Scripture, confirmed by
sound Christian experience, is that we “ work out our own sal-
vation with fear and trembling, while God works in us to will and
to do”; that this is a continuous process, and that we never cease,
not merely works of holy living and service according to the
measure of our present attainment, but in striving against sin
in heart and life, laying aside the sin which easily besets us.
And we have observed that even those who come to perfec-
tionism by the Pelagian or semi-Pelagian method of plenary
ability without divine grace to perfectly keep the divine law,
no sooner conceive themselves to have attained perfection in
the exercise of this ability than they reverse their attitude into
one of almost passive receptivity — of simply receiving by one
act of faith the gift from the fulness of Christ — of waiting, rest-
ing in Christ, to the discarding of all works or efforts of our
own, or in our own strength as subservient thereto. A notable
case of some remarkable and elevated phases of this experience
is found in the 27th chapter of Mr. Finney’s Autobiography.
Those who read it will find how he “ seemed to be in a state of
perfect rest,” even to the point of a super-scriptural, if not anti-
scriptural, Hopkinsian submission, in respect to “the salva-
tion or damnation of his own soul, as the will of God might
decide” ; his mind “ too full of the subject to preach anything
but a full and present salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“ What I had been praying for, for myself, I had received in a
way that I least expected. Holiness to the Lord seemed to
be inscribed on all the exercises of my mind. I had such
strong faith that God would accomplish all his perfect will, that
T 877.]
and Christian Perfection.
417
I could not be careful about anything.” . . . “ I then realized
what is meant by the saying, that he is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think. He did at that
time teach me, indefinitely, above all that I had ever asked or
thought. I had had no conception of the length and breadth,
and height and depth, and efficiency of his grace. It seemed
then to me that that passage, ‘ My grace is sufficient for thee,’
meant so much, that it was wonderful I had never understood
it before,” etc., etc. Much in this chapter verges upon an ele-
vated tone of hyper-Calvinism, Mysticism, and Quietism. So
Dr. Mahan ( Pioneer Experiences , p. 14) says: “For sanctifica-
tion, on the other hand, to overcome the world, the flesh and
the devil, I had depended mainly upon my own resolutions.
Here was my grand mistake, and the source of all my bondage
under sin.” . . . “ If my propensities which lead to sin are cru-
cified, I know that it must be done by an indwelling Christ ”
(p. 17). He proceeds to state his belief “ that the Lord Jesus
Christ has provided special grace for the entire sanctification of
every individual. . . . The first inquiry with me is, in what re-
spect do I need the grace of Christ? . . . Thus having discov-
ered my special necessities in any one of the particulars above
referred to, my next object is to take some promise applicable
to the particular necessity before me, and to go directly to
Christ for the supply of that particular necessity.” This is all
right on two suppositions: 1 — that in these approaches to
Christ for sanctifying grace, the sufficient grace be expected
according to the measure of the present dispensation, but
not in the measure of sinless perfection ; and 2 — that it be in
such wise that Christ’s working in us to will and to do the
things pleasing in his sight will be evinced by our working out
our own salvation, even if with (holy) fear and trembling. But
all will recognize in this the complete swinging from the ex-
treme of self-sufficient reliance on native powers to that of a
life consisting in a comparatively passive recipiency of divine
grace.
3. In perfect consonance with the scheme, and as its logical
outcome, all that implies imperfection, the conflict between the
flesh and spirit, penitential confession and humiliation for pres-
ent spiritual faults and shortcomings, are unwelcome to these
people. Mr. See, in his Rest of Faith, gives vent to these feel-
418
The Higher Life
[July,
ings in an introductory chapter, in which he. maintains that the
“ church is not a hospital,” i.e., for the cure of enfeebled or
the strengthening of imperfect Christians. He represents, in a
condemnatory tone, that “ the churches through the land are
only infirmaries where people come to be treated by the Great
Physician, who proceeds to cure people by a slow process, in
the meantime leaving them to the oversight of these sick minis-
tering nurses.” He warns (p. 179) against being entangled in a
“ seventh of Romans difficulty ‘ and a Galatian snare,’ which in
our journey we do well to keep in the distance by simple
faith.” He would banish from the worship of the church
“ hymns that hurt,” among which he classes those that voice
the Christian’s penitential confession ; specifying explicitly
those beginning :
“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove.”
“ O for a closer walk with God.”
“ Come, thou fount of every blessing.”
“ Thus far my God hath led me on.”
Comment is needless.
4. It cannot be denied that while many persons of sweet and
unpretending spirit are allured into these Higher Life circles
for reasons already stated, the system tends to nourish a spirit
of Pharisaism and uncharitableness. It does so, as its profess-
ors assume a superiority to ordinary Christians ; they are per-
fect, while the church as a whole is imperfect, or if not this,
they are leading a higher Christian life than the average.
Many of their adherents assume, what most of their arguments
imply, that those not entirely sanctified are not regenerated,
and, therefore, if professing Christians, are hypocrites. The
very gathering into separate meetings, called “ holiness meet-
ings,” or “ higher life meetings,” is an assumption of superior-
ity— nay, it implies that the ordinary meetings and services of
the church are not thus in the interest of holiness, which is to
impeach their Christian character. This spirit says literally,
“ Stand by, for I am holier than thou.” It cannot, as a whole,
and exceptions aside, be otherwise than divisive, denunciatory
and censorious. What the ultimate issue of all this must be,
that on the whole it must be disastrous to religion, all history
and reason prove.
5. It cannot be denied that the Antinomian feature of this
system has strong logical and practical affinities for licentious-
1877-]
and Christian Perfection.
419
ness : men who esteem themselves perfect are apt to make
themselves, their own subjective exercises, experiences, judg-
ments, desires, and appetites, the measure and standard of per-
fection ; to make these the rule and measure of rectitude, rather
than God’s word ; or rather to construe them as God’s voice
and word, speaking in and through them. They have often
maintained that as Christ was living within them, their desires,
and words and deeds were Christ’s. This, of course, is the ex-
treme of fanatical and blasphemous Antinomian pride and
licentiousness. It goes to seed in Onedia communities. Mr.
Finney says (Autobiography, p. 341) that about the time he
commenced preaching on perfection, it came to be agitated, in
the Antinomian sense of the term, a good deal at New Haven,
at Albany, and somewhat in New York City, and that he
could not accept these views. History shows their melancholy
course and results. But there are other and higher forms of
making our subjective feeling the standard of truth and holi-
ness besides the gross and low form above noted. It often de-
velops in simple mysticism, in which the feeling of the subject,
devout and elevated though it be, still becomes a law unto
itself, and sets its own impulses and bewilderments above the
law and the testimony. Against all this we cannot too sedu-
lously guard. Nor do we think it wrong or uncharitable in
this connection to refer to the career of Mr. Pearsall Smith,
who has been so conspicuous in Higher Life leadership.
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
420
Art. II.— THE GREAT MESSIANIC PROPHECY.
By Wolcott Calkins, D. D., Buffalo, N. Y.
“Of whom speaketh the prophet ?” was the pertinent ques-
tion of the Ethiopian Treasurer concerning the most remark-
able prediction ever recorded. Never was the question more
urgent than now. We get disquieted by doubts about the
Bible and the certainty of our Christian hopes, because we
permit ourselves to be diverted by trivial and irrelevant objec-
tions from resolute investigation of truths which are decisive.
Such a truth is before us, and it demands thorough and
dispassionate research.
In the sublime description of the sufferings and triumphs of
Jehovah’s Servant, which the Ethiopian was reading, three por-
tions are distinguished by the form of the address. In the
first, the speaker is Jehovah himself, who discloses in outline
the exaltation of his servant, after unexampled humiliation.
In the second, the prophet enumerates these sufferings in
detail, and closes with assurances of his final triumph. In the
third, Jehovah confirms these assurances and closes the pre-
diction as it began, with the sure word of God, that through
sorrow and death his Servant shall prosper, and be exalted
above all majesty and power.
I. Behold, my Servant shall prosper,
He shall rise up, and be extolled, and stand triumphantly exalted.
Even as many were shocked at him
(His countenance was so marred as to be no more that of a man,
His form no more that of sons of men !)
So also shall he sprinkle many nations.
The kings shall shut their mouths before him;
For what had not been told them they shall see,
And what they had never heard they shall consider.*
II. Who hath believed our report ?
And to whom is Jehovah’s arm revealed ?
For he shall grow up berore Him as a tender plant,
And as a sprout out of dry ground.
He hath no form nor comeliness that we should look up to him,
No beauty that we should take pleasure in him.
He is despised and rejected of men,
A man of sorrows, well acquainted with sickness ;
*Isa. lii .-13-15.
1877-]
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
421
And like one hiding his face before us,
He was despised and we esteemed him not.
And yet it was our own sickness that he bore,
And our sorrows that he loaded upon himself.
But we supposed he was punished,
Smitten of God, and tormented !
O, no ! He was wounded for our transgressions,
Bruised for our iniquities.
Chastisement for our peace was upon him,
And with his stripes we are made whole.
All we like sheep have gone astray,
We have turned every one to his own way.
And Jehovah made the guilt of us all to meet upon him.
He was oppressed, and yet he humbled himself;
And he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter,
And as a sheep is dumb before her shearers,
So he opened not his mouth.
He was dragged to punishment by violence, and yet by process of law ;
And who of the men of his generation took it to heart
That he was cut off from the land of the living,
That the stroke for my people’s transgressions fell upon him !
They appointed him his grave with criminals
(Still he was with a rich man in his death !)
Although he had done no wrong,
Neither was any deceit in his mouth.
And yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him.
He laid sickness upon him.
But when he has made over his soul as a sin-offering,
He shall see offspring; he shall prolong his days,
And the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hands !*
III. — Free from the travail of his soul,
He shall see and be satisfied.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant make many righteous.
Because he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore will I give him the great as a portion,
And he shall distribute the strong as spoil.
For he hath poured out his soul unto death,
And he was numbered with transgressors,
While he was bearing the sin of many
And was making intercession for the transgressors !f
Of whom speaketh the Prophet thus? Only one answer has
ever been derived from the simple reading of the words, with-
out a previous theory. Jewish writers were almost unanimous
that this was a Messianic prophecy until the Christian apolo-
* Isa. liii: 1-10.
(New Series, No. 22.)
f Isa. liii : 1 1-12.
27
422
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
gists made the admission fatal to them. And modern rational-
ism did not discover, until late in the last century, that if this
prediction refers to a person who appeared in history hundreds
of years after it was made, it is a miracle which makes all the
miracles of the New Testament credible. What answer, then,
have Jews and rationalists made to this question which they
cannot evade — Of whom speaketh the prophet ?
“ Of the whole Jewish people. In the first part Jehovah
applies to his chosen people the well-known name — my servant,
and contrasts their present misery with their future glory.
In the second part the heathen confess their sins, and look to
Israel as their Saviour. In the third part the Lord assures
them that their sins have been pardoned through the interces-
sions of his anointed people.”
This was the first attempt of Jewish writers to escape the
Messianic interpretation.* The theory has been embraced by
many of the ablest modern rationalists, f some of whom seek
to evade its gravest difficulties by applying the description to
the ideal Israel whom God called out of Egypt and purposed
to establish in the Holy Land, not to the actual Israel of the
exile. J: The latter hypothesis encounters more embarrassment
than it escapes, for it leaves no place for the sufferings of the
exile, which are said to inspire the whole description.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the contradictions involved
in this conjecture. Our prophet carefully distinguishes the
people from the servant of the Lord: “Ye are my witnesses,
and my servant whom I have chosen. Ӥ The two are wholly
different in character. Israel is blind, deaf, stiff-necked,
treacherous;! the servant innocent and guileless.^ Israel is
never described as the redeemer of the heathen. On the con-
trary, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba are given for a ransom of
Israel.** The servant of the Lord is afflicted, not for his own
sins, but for transgressors. But who gave Jacob for a spoil,
and Israel to the robbers? The Lord, for they would not walk
in his ways, neither were they obedient to His law. ft Of this
rebellious people it could never have been said —
* Abenezra, Kimchi, Abarbanel.
f Rosenmiiller, Hitzig, Koster.
J Ewald, Beck,
g Is. xliii : io.
| xliii : 8; xlviii : 4-8.
*[ liii : 1 1.
** xliii: 3.
t f xlii : 24; lxiii : 10.
1877-]
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
423
“ It pleased the Lord to bruise him,
Although he had done no wrong,
Neither was guile found in his mouth. ”
Of whom speaketh the prophet ? “ Of the obedient portion of
the people in contrast with the idolatrous ; the collective body
of the prophets;* the faithful exiles ;f those only of the faith-
ful whose true piety made them zealous to return to their
homes, especially patriotic elders, priests, Levites and proph-
ets.^; Some class of the Jewish people, more or less extended,
is described as suffering oppression, and often martyrdom
itself; the disobedient at length confess that their own sins
have involved their innocent brethren in calamity ; and restored
to repentance and fidelity by this means, they are pardoned
by their God for the sake of His servant.”
In some form this is the theory of the ablest scholars who
now reject the Messianic interpretation. But they all fail to
find a class of men who bear any resemblance to the descrip-
tion. There is no such exceptional class among the people.
“ We are all as an unclean thing; all our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags; there is none that calleth upon thy name.Ӥ The
grammatical construction forces these writers themselves to
make the prophet the speaker in the second part. He con-
fesses his own sins, and at the same time belongs to the class
who are suffering innocently for the sins of others !
These sufferings are also wholly voluntary. “ He bore our
sickness; he loaded our sorrows upon himself.”|| “ He made
over his own soul as a sin-offering. ”^[ But the faithful exiles
endured only what they could not escape. He was patient.
“ He opened not his mouth.” The mouths of the exiles were
always open— “ By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down ;
yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.”** The sweetest
lyrics of the most poetic nation in history are elegies of sorrow,
and dirges of bereavement. And why does this immortal song
of the exiles glide so naturally into bloodthirsty cursings of
enemies ?
“ O daughter of Babylon!
Blessed shall be he that taketh and dasheth
Thy little ones against the stones !”
* De Wette, Gesenius, Winer. || liii : 4.
t Thenius, Paulus, Maurer. Tf liii: 10. Both lost in the authorized version,.
J Knobel. ** Ps. 137: 1.
§Isa lxiv: 6.
424 The Great Messianic Prophecy. [ J uly ,
What mean the fearful execrations of many of the Psalms ?
“ Let his days be few, and let another take his office ;
Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow ;
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg ! ”*
What mean the eulogies of treachery, and of hospitality
desecrated by perjury and assassination ?
“ Blessed be Jael above women !
She stretched out her hand to the tent pin,
And her right hand to the hammer of the workmen.
She hammered Sisera, she smote his head ;
She beat him, she struck through his temples ;
Between her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay ;
Where he bowed, there he fell down slaughtered !
So perish all thine enemies, O Jehovah ! ”f
It is no part of our purpose to propose any theory of these
frightful utterances of vindictive passion which abound in Jew-
ish prophecy and poetry. All theories admit this one fact,
that they are true and imperishable records of human opinion.
Like the pillar of salt overlooking the plains of Sodom and
Gomorrah, these bleak, rugged shafts of vengeance stand sen-
tinels by the shores of the buried past, defending from doubt
the deep resentment of the human mind, and pre-eminently of
the Jewish mind, for oppression. From this natural infirmity
no Israelite was exempt. David, the sweet Psalmist of Zion,
was the most fervent curser of them all. Jeremiah never sup-
presses his sobs but to breathe out vengeance. Isaiah exhausts
ridicule and malediction upon his idolatrous foes. Where in
all the wide wanderings of these kinsmen of the fierce Bedouin,
who never forgives; where in the eventful history of this
strange people, whom hatred for others has held together when
love for one another had lost its cohesive power, are we to
look for a class of men who humble themselves when they are
oppressed, who open not the mouth when they are led like
sheep to the shearers, like lambs to the slaughter ? This
theory of a righteous and submissive class of sufferers in
Israel is one of the perversions of history which nothing but
the credulity of modern rationalism can tolerate.
But, after all, we might have dismissed both these theories
summarily, by remarking what is evident to the Ethiopian,
Ps. 109: 8-10.
f Jndges v : 24-27.
1877.]
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
425
and to every candid reader who has no a priori theory, that
the prophet is not speaking of a collective class at all, but of
an individual. He has the countenance and form of a man.
His growth, his life, his death, his burial, are described circum-
stantially. It is within the range of poetic license to portray
the vicissitudes of national calamity under the figure of an in-
jured person ; and possibly to speak of their destruction as
the grave of the buried nation. But such precise and vivid
representations as these, applied to so vague a subject, would
be offensive in any poet, intolerable in any prophet. Of whom
speaketh the prophet? Of himself or of some other man?
The question has been evaded, not answered, by nearly all
who have written in the interests of unbelief.
Some, however, have dared to answer: “ He is speaking of
himself,* of King Josiah,f of Jeremiah,;}; of King Uzziah,§ of
King Hezekiah, of an unknown prophet slain by the Jews in
exile, of Cyrus, of the Maccabees, of some unnamed king of
Israel.
It is a remarkable fact that no one of these candidates for
canonization in the calendar of unbelief has had more than one
advocate at a time. Knobel says of them all that they scarcely
deserve mention, much less refutation.** But there is one re-
mark to be made on this theory, which will also apply to the
others, that is too important to be omitted : On this or any
other theory of modern Jews and skeptics, our prophet teaches
the doctrine of expiation by the vicarious suffering of a human
victim.
From the fortieth chapter to the close of the book, a two-
fold deliverance is incessantly proclaimed. And, like the pre-
dictions of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the judgment
day in Matthew, the two are not always clearly distinguished,
although the first nine chapters refer chiefly to the deliverance
from Babylon, the rest of the book to the redemption from sin
and misery. Each of these great blessings shall be accom-
plished by a servant of Jehovah ; the former by Cyrus, the lat-
ter by the servant in this chapter. Cyrus shall save Israel by
* Standlin. f Aberbanel, as an alternati j&. % Rabbi Saadias Haggaon.
J AugustL. || Konynenburg and Bahrdt.
If Anonymous writers in rationalistic periodicals.
** Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch, Jesaia, p. 387.
426
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
his courage, by his power, by his military supremacy ; but this
servant by his meekness, his submission, his suffering, his
death and burial. Nor are his sufferings merely preliminary tc*
his work. They do the work. This is disclosed, chiaro oscura
after the usual prophetic manner, in the opening announce-
ment: “He shall sprinkle many nations.” The well-known
word, with the technical meaning of sacrificial worship, to sanc-
tify the unclean by sprinkling on them the blood of innocence,
is boldly and deliberately chosen. But even if this meaning
is rejected,* the following descriptions are so precise that ration-
alism has made no attempt to evade them.f
These words can bear but one meaning. Guilt, and suffering
for guilt, were taken off from transgressors and borne by their
innocent substitute. He expiated their sins by his atoning
death. Men may say that this is only figuratively true, and
describes no real transaction. They make no attempt to deny
that the prophet believes and affirms that sinners are saved by
the sacrifice of this victim.
Now, what if this servant of the Lord is Isaiah, or Jeremiah,
or any other martyr of Israel — or, for that matter, any collect-
ive class of good men? Then human guilt is expiated by the
death of a human victim ! And no trace of such a doctrine can
be found elsewhere in the Bible. When it is said that God will
give Seba, Egypt and Ethiopia as a ransom, % or that the evil-
doer is a ransom for the righteous, and the ungodly for the
pious, § this figurative sense of ransom has nothing in common
with the expiation of guilt by the substitution of an innocent
victim. Prophecy knows nothing of the atonement of guilt by
human suffering.
Or rather the Scriptures know and reject with horror this
refuge of guilty despair. It prevailed in every nation surround-
ing Israel. It prevailed in Greece, and Rome, and ancient
Mexico. It prevails still in savage Africa. And once God did
tempt Abraham, for this among other purposes, to fix in the
minds of all his descendants a horror of human immolation, and
make it forever impossible for them to believe that he could
command them to make their children pass through the fire
* Gesenius, De Wette, Knobel.
f See our version of liii: 4, 5, 6,1012
f Is. xliii : 3.
§ Prov. xxi : 18.
1 877.] The Great Messianic Prophecy. 427
as did the Moabites ; or to bleed on the altars in high places,
as in the cruel rites of the Canaanites and Philistines. It is
the gloomy and venal prophet of the fire-god of the far East
who puts the startling question : “Wherewith shall I come be-
fore Jehovah? Shall I give my first-born for my transgres-
sion— the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? ” * The
horrid conjecture makes the prophet of Israel shudder. It was
the one indestructible conviction of the national mind, engen-
dered by the selection of the kid, the most insignificant of their
spotless victims, for their sin-offering, that Jehovah reserved in
his own hands the provision of atonement for sin ; that man
could not furnish the victim ; and, above all, that the intrusion
of a human victim was something immeasurably worse than
murder; it was sacrilege and blasphemy against the author
and defender of human life.
And here we have reached at a bound a momentous conclu-
sion concerning our prophecy. That this servant of Jehovah
could be any martyr, or any class of righteous sufferers, is a
conception which no true Israelite could entertain. Nothing
marks so painfully the degradation of modern Israel as the ad-
mission of this heathenish idea. But this is not all. This
sprinkler of the nations ; this sin-bearer for all the people ; this
mysterious being who takes away sin by making his own life
a sin-offering, cannot be a man at all ! That is, he cannot be-
long to the sinful race he redeems. The prophet must have
in his mind a servant of Jehovah who comes down from heaven,
not up from sinful earth. This is the thought which links the
present indissolubly with the former description :
“ They shall call his name God-with-us !”f
“ The government shall be upon his shoulders,
And his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God,
The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. ”t
Of whom speaketh the prophet this ? Of the Messiah of
God. Of the divine Redeemer provided from heaven to sprin-
kle the sinful nations of the earth. Of the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world. All other theories involve
hopeless contradictions. This alone leaves the impress of
truth.
* Mic. vi : 6.
f Is. vii : 14.
t Is. ix : 6.
428
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
But the Ethiopian meant more than this by his question.
Has this prediction been fulfilled ? All attempts to find in
any possible development from our sinful race the original of
this clearly defined and heavenly portrait have been self-con-
tradictory and vain. But has one come down from heaven,
stood upon the earth, and been recognized as the substance of
this photographic shadow thrown forward upon the sensitive
page of prophecy ?
It is a relief to observe that Doderlein’s theory of the later
composition of this part of Isaiah, from the fortieth chapter to
the close, is no embarrassment to the discussion of this ques-
tion. It is admitted by all that if the prediction be Messianic,
it wras not fulfilled until hundreds of years after the exile.
The few Jewish scholars who hold it to be Messianic are look-
ing for its fulfillment still. It was absolutely necessary for
those who denied the possibility of miracles to invent this the-
ory, that an unknown prophet of the exile added to Isaiah’s
work the marvelous disclosures of Israel’s two-fold deliverance
from Babylon and from the guilt of sin, after the former had
been accomplished. But the latter was not accomplished by
the return from captivity. Nothing at all resembling these de-
scriptions occurred for many centuries after the latest date as-
signed by destructive criticism to their publication. To our
argument it is a matter of complete indifference whether
Isaiah or some other prophet wrote this chapter ; whether it
was written eight hundred or only six hundred years before
its fulfilment.
For it has been fulfilled to the letter! This is the startling
fact which we have still to point out. On any hypothesis of
the date of the work before us, we are in the presence of an in-
contestable miracle. Let us try to get some adequate impres-
sion of it. Go back in the centuries, not eight hundred years,
as we might, but the six hundred years conceded to this proph-
ecy by unbelievers themselves. Six hundred years ago Eng-
land was beginning the struggle for civil liberty ; the Mag-
na Charta had just vindicated the great principle of Anglo-
Saxon legislation — no taxation without representation ; the
first regular parliament had just assembled. Now, what if in
that germinal period of liberty and equality before the law,
more than two hundred years before the discovery of America,
1 8 77.] The Great Messianic Prophecy. 429
some renowned reformer had made and recorded the pre-
diction of a terrible struggle to extend these rights of man,
not alone to baron and freeholder, but to workingmen and
slaves; the leader on the side of emancipation is depicted as a
tall, awkward, ungainly man, destitute of culture or refine-
ment ; he is misunderstood, suspected, and bitterly opposed ;
against all this hostility he steadfastly persists in his purpose,
and publishes a proclamation of freedom to milli ons of the op-
pressed ; at last he is put to death by the hand of an assassin ;
the weapon employed is described as one entirely unknown at
the time of the prediction ; and after his death, the cause for
which he sheds his blood attains the most signal triumph.
Would it be possible for us to mistake the verification of
such a prophecy ? Would it be possible to doubt that these
words were inspired by the omniscient God, to whom the future
is ever present? Would it be difficult for us to convince an in-
telligent stranger from the interior of China, whom we might
find reading it with wonder, that it certainly referred to Abra-
ham Lincoln ? Precisely this was the miracle of prophecy, just ful-
filled to the letter, which gave to the apostles of the first cen-
tury their irresistible arguments. The Ethiopian is reading a
prediction in every respect as exact and detailed as the one
supposed. And Philip began at the same Scripture and
preached unto him Jesus. He compared unquestionable facts,
of which the stranger had full knowledge, with the prophecy.
He demanded the surrender of reason and conscience to the
certain conclusion from this coincidence that this was the work
of God for the salvation of men. The same facts are before us.
Let us make the same comparison, and yield the same homage
to divine truth.
The descriptions of the Messiah’s origin among men and
personal appearance deserve our first consideration. The
marring of his form and countenance so that men were shocked
at him and despised him, refer to his violent death. But it
appears that he grew up from childhood in a family that had
fallen into utter obscurity, like a sprout out of dry ground, and
that he had no form nor comeliness that men should look up to
him; no beauty that they should take pleasure in him. These
words must refer to his humble origin, and insignificant appear-
ance among men. And such a picture could never have been
430
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
drawn at random by human ingenuity. It is true the Jews
were the most democratic people on earth. They loved to
think of their first victorious king, coming to his encounter with
the uncircumcised giant, armed with nothing but the shep-
herd’s sling. But the lowly origin of the peasant boy was fully
compensated by his manly beauty, his magnificent strength, and
his impetuous courage. The descendants of Samson, of Saul,
of David and of Judas Maccabaeus, could never conceive of a
king of Israel with neither form nor comeliness.
The prophet foresees that this description will be incredible
— Who hath believed our report? Nor is it incredible to Jews
alone. The history of its fulfilment has proved incredible to
the Christian world. We have in Christian art an undesigned
but marvelous verification of this prophecy. Whence have
painters and sculptors derived that form of majesty and face
combining the tenderness of woman, the strength of manhood,
and the divinity of the Son of God, which rises before us in
such masterpieces as the Ecce Homo ? They are pure fancies.
They are the fancies which artistic minds must form of God
incarnate. But they are certainly false. In pictures of the
transfiguration, or of the ascension, they may be possible con-
jectures. As representations of Christ in his humiliation, they
are exactly contradictory to the facts. We know nothing of
what his appearance was ; we know it was not what art rep-
resents. Such a man could not appear anywhere, in any
period of history, without attracting general attention. But
there was nothing in Jesus’ form or features to cause any
one to turn and look at him a second time. John was on the
lookout for the Messiah, but had never heard of this cousin of
his as a remarkable man, and “knew him not” until the miracu-
lous sign was given him. It took a miracle to call the apostles
to follow him. His brothers could not be convinced by any
miracle but the last. The great multitude, led by imagination
more than by reason, were fascinated by the miracles, but
soon offended by his humble appearance. Few will believe it
even now ; our readers will probably be shocked that their
Saviour is described in such commonplace language. But the
fact is incontestable. The Servant of Jehovah had no form
nor comeliness that men should look up to him, no beauty that
they should desire him.
1 877.] The Great Messianic Prophecy . 431
The Messiah was also to be the greatest sufferer in the
world. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
He is despised, rejected, bruised, smitten with stripes and put
to a cruel death. Who hath believed our report? For this is
not the prediction of one prophet alone. Centuries before,
David had described these sufferings of the Messiah in no less
startling language. He was to become a worm, and no longer
a man; he was to be surrounded by gaping multitudes scoffing
at his anguish; he was to cry out in momentary despair, “My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!* The prophet ex-
claims, in behalf of himself and of all who had foretold these
sufferings — Who hath believed our report ! Through the cap-
tivity, after the expiration of prophecy, during the dark ages of
Syrian, Macedonian and Roman oppression, under the Macca-
bees, under Hillel, to the final destruction of Jerusalem and
dismemberment of the nation, the Jews preserved faith and
hope in their Messiah, but they never expected a suffering
Messiah. With the insignificant exception of the old prophets,
of John the Baptist, who was looking for the Lamb of God to
take away the sins of the world, and of a few other men and
women of exceptional penetration, these unequivocal predic-
tions of the Messiah’s extreme sufferings were completely for-
gotten or else resolutely rejected. Their fulfillment to the
letter failed to bring them back to recollection and to faith.
Masters of Israel, readers and teachers of Psalms and prophets,
stood by the cross and proposed this test of his Messiahship:
“If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the
cross and we will believe on him. He trusted in God; let him
deliver him now if he will save him.”f He was not only endur-
ing the very sufferings foretold of the Messiah, but these exact
words of theirs are unwittingly repeated from the twenty-
second Psalm, and yet they never take it to heart. To the
last they reason against the Scriptures they profess to revere.
The apostles were no less blind and slow of heart to believe.
They kept echoing the one immovable conviction of the
national mind: “We have heard out of the law that the Mes-
siah abideth forever; how sayest thou that the Son of Man
must be lifted up ?”J Near the close of his life, he told them
* Psalm xxii.
f Mt. xxvii : 42.
f John xii : 34.
432
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
plainly of his impending sufferings, of the manner of his death,
and how long he would lie in the grave. They understood
none of these things. Peter took him and rebuked him. This
complete ignorance and confirmed unbelief in his own times
is a miraculous fulfillment of one portion of our prophecy which
is wholly lost in the English version.
“ Who of the men of his generation took it to heart
That he was cut off from the land of the living,
That the stroke for my people’s transgressions fell upon him!”*
It is no wonder that such predictions are discredited when
they are made. But even when they are fulfilled to the letter,
and the blow falls which cuts off from life the Redeemer, and
saves the redeemed from death, the eye-witnesses of the event
fail to take it to heart.
To the thoughtful mind these disclosures of the public
opinion of ages far in the future, and the exact verification of
them in history, are proofs that prophecy is miraculous and
Jesus is the Messiah, more decisive than coincidences of facts
in detail, with their prediction. And yet the latter are con-
vincing enough. Some of these may be briefly enumerated :
The prophets foresee a form of suffering which is absolutely
unknown to Jewish law and custom. All the nations of an-
tiquity except the Jews were accustomed to put condemned
persons to death by torture. A morbid ingenuity was ex-
hausted to prolong human suffering. The Philistines burned
their prisoners alive. t The awful picture of the mother com-
pelled to see her seven sons dismembered and burned piece-
meal by their heathen tyrant, is undoubtedly painted from the
life.:}: The Greeks reserved for the execution of their own cit-
izens a painless but fatal narcotic. But barbarians and slaves
were tortured. Socrates is described by Plato as defending a
man for binding one of his slaves in chains, and leaving him to
die of hunger and thirst. Demosthenes boasts that he once
caused a wretch to be flayed alive. There is no improbability
in these stories. The most cultivated men of those times in-
stinctively felt that torture was a necessary ingredient of pun-
ishment. The instinct survives in the barbarous execution still
practiced in England and America. Christianity is not yet
powerful enough to substitute instant death by painless an-
* Isa. liii : 8.
f Judges xv : 5.
JMac. : vii.
433
1 877.] The Great Messianic Prophecy .
aesthetics for slow strangulation, as the penalty for the worst
crimes.
But of all the tortures ever sanctioned by law, nothing can
compare with the excruciating punishment employed rarely
by Persians, Egyptians, Carthagenians and Macedonians, but
never in common use among the Orientals, until Rome ex-
tended her conquests to the Euphrates. We have come to
venerate the cross. Delicate woman wears its emblem without
a shudder. We must divest ourselves of this feeling. We
must ask ourselves what it would be fora French lady to fondle
among her jewels a model of the guillotine on which her hus-
band died, or for us to erect the scaffold of death as the most
conspicuous monument of our cities. We can thus form some
idea of the horror which the cross excited in the days of the
apostles. It was one of the most familiar objects in their
country. In their many journeys, they had often come upon
the executioners at their savage work. They had heard the
despairing cries of sufferers, lingering all night long in their
anguish. This was something worse than heartless cruelty —
it was a gratuitous outrage to the merciful institutions in which
they were educated. The death penalty under the law of
Moses, inflicted alike on citizen and alien, bond and free, was
rude but humane. The first stone cast, often destroyed sensi-
bility. Hanging was only employed after death, as additional
disgrace. Suffering by torture was more repugnant to their
feelings than it is to ours. But the shameful, inhuman torture
of the Roman crucifixion, the torture that made Caesar, the
man of blood, faint away the first time he beheld it; the tor-
ture that prolonged life and intensified anguish in extreme
cases for twenty-four hours — no words can express the revulsion
it excited in the soul of an Israelite.
And yet Israelites foretold this punishment centuries before
the nation that brought it into general use had grown to
threatening power. Nay, centuries before the traditional date
of the founding of Rome, Jewish prophecy exclaimed : “ They
pierced my hands and my feet.”'" The details of our present
prophecy are less precise than this, and the words of Zecha-
riah : “The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall look upon him
Psalms xxii : 16.
434
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
whom they have pierced, and shall mourn.”* But the scourging
by stripes, the laceration of the brow with thorns, and the
shocking abuse of his suffering body, as if he were a beast and
no more a man, are fearful descriptions of barbarities unknown
and unsuspected until the period of Roman tyranny.
But there are three combinations peculiar to this prediction,
which serve to fix the date of its fulfilment with absolute cer-
tainty. The English version renders the eighth verse : “ He was
taken from prison and from judgment” ; that is, a mob snatched
him out of prison and put him to death without a regular trial.
Nothing of the kind occurred in the death of Jesus, and the
prophet says nothing of the kind. All authorities are now
agreed in giving this as the exact meaning of the original :
“ He was dragged to punishment by violence, and yet under
due process of law.” Now how could such a combination of
things be possible ? Men were killed by mob violence in Isaiah’s
time. The innocent suffered under process of law. But both
forces meeting — the turbulence of a lawless conspiracy, the
stern requisitions of that august authority which always defies
such anarchy — what human sagacity forecasting all probabil-
ities or possibilities could have stumbled upon such a conjec-
ture ? It was no conjecture. It was a divine revelation of the
one tragic period in the national history, when unprecedented
freedom reigned in strange alliance with despotism. The
Messiah was dragged to punishment by violence. The infuri-
ated mob exhausted their cruelty upon the unresisting victim,
as if the old times had come back again when every man did
that which was right in his own eyes. But all was done under
due process of law. The Roman legion stood by, to see that
every requirement of criminal law was rigidly executed.
Another combination of two things apparently conflicting
is still more remarkable. It appears that others were to be
executed with him : “ he was numbered with transgressors.’’
It would naturally follow that he would also be buried with
them. And this was the intention of his enemies: “They ap-
pointed his grave with criminals. ”f The loathsome receptacle
of the dead in the valley of Hinnom would naturally receive
* Zechariah xii: io.
t Isaiah 53: 8. The English version is certainly at fault here. The subject of
the verb is indefinite. “Man gab bei Frevlern sein Grab.’’ Knobel. De Wette.
435
1 877.] The Great Messianic Prophecy.
the remains of him who in life was despised and rejected of
men. “ They gave him his grave with criminals, although he
had done no wrong, neither was guile found in his mouth.”
This is what the writer is going to say. The spirit of God will
not let him say it. A strange parenthesis breaks the continu-
ity of his mournful thoughts with one bright beam of light :
“ They gave him his grave with criminals (still he was with a
rich man in his death !), although he had done no wrong !”
Could anything but Omniscience have foreseen that in the
appalling hour, when the dearest disciples had forsaken him, a
rich man, who had hitherto been afraid to avow his allegiance
to him, would have had the faith and the moral courage to
rescue from nameless sepulture the bruised and lifeless remains
of the Messiah of God !
But the third combination is positively unanswerable. And
it is disclosed, not in casual remarks, but throughout the
whole prediction. He is a suffering and a triumphant Messiah.
His death is not the end, but the beginning of his victorious
career. In other Messianic prophecies his sufferings are re-
served for separate and guarded descriptions, and the impres-
sion they made at the time was like that which we all receive
now from the unfulfilled prophecies in the Apocalypse, of woes
and disasters in the last times. We do not discredit them,
neither do we understand them. But on the whole we are sure
that our Lord Christ will finally triumph. So the Jews were
disquieted by these strange predictions of humiliation and
sorrow, but they kept the eye fixed on the assurances in Moses
and all the prophets, that the anointed king of Israel would
overcome all his enemies and reign in majesty.*
The number and affluence of these promises of his glory
were mercifully designed to keep out of sight in times of de-
spondency the most crushing woe that was ever to befall them,
their own betrayal and murder of their Messiah. The few
shadows thrown upon the canvass by his sufferings were sel-
dom observed, as they served to heighten the brilliant colors
in which their everlasting and omnipotent king was portrayed
to their ardent hopes.
But here the light ar.d shade are wonderfully blended. The
* Gen. iii : 15 ; xlix : 10 ; Num. xxiv : 17 ; Ueut. xviii : 18-19 ! Ps. u ; Ps. xlv ;
Ps. lxxii ; Pi. cx ; Mai. iii : 1; Mic. v : 2: Is. ix : 6,7.
436
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
foreground and background are brilliant. The description be-
gins and ends in triumph. There is radiant glory lining the
darkest clouds. Even death and burial do not interrupt his
redeeming work. He makes over his soul as a sin-offering, he
is entombed in the grave of a rich man, and then he prolongs
his days, he beholds offspring, the pleasure of Jehovah prospers
in his hand, he makes many righteous, he secures the great as
his portion and the strong as his spoil ! Of whom speaketh the
prophet this? Tragic poetry lingers with fond melancholy
over the untimely death of heroes, who conquer and die with
only distant visions of victory. And history makes grateful
record of the inheritance which posterity receives from the
blood of martyrs.* But here, he whose soul travails in sorrow
beholds the fruit of his suffering and is satisfied. This song of
triumph seems to be inspired by the grave itself. It is precise-
ly when he is dead and buried that the glorious redemption
for which he has poured out his soul begins to attain decisive
victory. Of whom speaketh the prophet this ? Has this com-
bination of two contradictory things also been exactly verified
in history?
A few weeks after the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, his
apostles stood before a vast multitude of his murderers, trans-
figured with a new faith and hope. There was a strange re-
serve of power in their quietness and unhesitating courage to
meet the present emergency, which hushed the turbulent as-
sembly to silence. One of their number, who on the night of
the arrest had become confused by the disappointment of
all his hopes, and swore that he knew nothing about this
Jesus of Nazareth, now steps forth, unrolls the prophecy
we have in hand, and others of the same import, which
he could never be made to understand before, and by just such
a comparison of prediction with fact as we are now making,
without the slightest appeal to passion, convinces every man
of them, who will use his reason at all, that God has made this
Jesus, whom they crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah.
What has made this marvellous change? What has sudden-
ly opened this mysterious page of prophecy ? What has mar-
* Knobel begs the question, by adducing this peculiarity of our prophecy as a
proof that it refers to a collective class, so that when one dies others continue the
work.
1877-]
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
43 7
shalled in their true place all those magnificent descriptions of
the Messiah’s power and majesty? And that repulsive instru-
ment of torture, from which every instinct of nature and every
feeling engendered by their education made them shrink with
a shudder ; the cross, the hideous emblem of Jewish submission
to Roman supremacy; the cross, where their beloved lingered
in anguish and expired — what has tranformed it all at once into
a standard of glory and victory?
For it was not on the day of Pentecost, but on the third day,
and in Jerusalem, by the very grave of their lost Messiah, that
this sudden revulsion of thought and feeling transpired. To this
fact we have the testimony of a historical document whose gen-
uineness no skeptic ventures to question.* Here is a stupen-
dous miracle. The apostles did not expect a suffering Messiah.
They could not be made to believe their own prophecies. The
very night before he suffered Jesus tried#n vain to make them
understand that the last things written in our chapter and in
the twenty-second Psalm were just coming to an end.f But
they could not believe. They buried in his grave their last
hopes. And three days later they did believe in a suffer-
ing Messiah ! In a few weeks they made thousands of the
conspirators against him believe, by an hour’s reasoning on the
very prophecies that had always been sealed books to them.
They have made millions in every age believe on Him. They
have revolutionized the religious thought, of the world.
One fact only can make such a miracle as this credible— the
fact of the resurrection of the crucified Messiah from the dead.
This sudden, complete, and enduring change of opinion could
never have taken place without this intervening fact. Jesus
the Messiah rose from the dead, was exalted by the right hand
of God, received and shed forth the promised Spirit, and then
convinced his disciples that the true Messiah ought to have
suffered all these things, planted in their hearts hopes, never to
be shattered again, that he would reign in all the majesty fore-
told in the prophets.
For this was a literal prolonging of his days. The Holy One
was not suffered to see corruption. As soon as he was free
from the travail of his soul he welcomed one redeemed soul to
Paradise, and began to behold with satisfaction the accession of
* I Cor. xv : 4.
(New Series, No. 22.J
f Luke xxii : 37.
28
438
The Great Messianic Prophecy.
[July,
innumerable offspring to the redeemed family of God. Among
them are the great. The mightiest of the earth have been
gathered for his spoil. And it is by his knowledge that this
righteous servant of Jehovah is making many righteous. The
fierce followers of the false prophet extended their conquests
with the fury of the iconoclast and the devotion of the mono-
theist. But this strange zeal, the offspring of sensuality and
of fatalism, has destroyed, never regenerated nor assimilated
the ignorant nations of the earth. And Christianity sinks
gradually to the level of Judaism and Mohammedism when
its central truth, of justification through faith in the crucified
Messiah of God, is outraged by bloody conquests, obscured
by superstitious displays, or confused by false philosophy.
The only trace of Romish missions surviving in many portions
of China and Japan, is the suspicion of political conspiracy
that clings to the Chr^tian name.
Mere intellectual culture, without this divine knowledge, is
no more effective in sprinkling the nations. During the life-
time of pastor Harms, his church of farmers and mechanics
sent more missionaries to the heathen than all the wealthy
congregations in New England, who deny the atonement and
divinity of Christ, have commissioned during their whole
history. The religion of unbelief is necessarily a religion of
self-development, not of self-sacrifice for lost souls. These
are not the religions of Prophecy. This Servant of Jehovah is
neither the good man of rationalism, nor the awful Judge who
cannot be approached without the mediation of saints. He is
the sprinkler of nations. He is the bearer of infirmities and
sins. He is the conqueror of the great by the omnipotent
sway of divine love alone. He is spreading his bloodless and
beneficent conquests wherever burdened souls feel their guilt
before God, and find peace in the chastisement that was laid
upon him. He has taken upon himself the sins of the world ;
he is making intercessions for transgressors ; and in due time
he shall see and be satisfied.
i877-]
The Law Passing Away, etc.
439
Art. III.— THE LAW PASSING AWAY, NOT BY DESTRUC-
TION, BUT BY FULFILLMENT.
By Addison Ballard, Lafayette College.
Two entirely opposite ideas of liberty and progress are in-
dicated in the assertion of Christ, that he came not to destroy,
but to fulfill the law; coupled, as it is, with that other declar-
ation, that “ not one jot or tittle shall in any wise pass from
the law till all be fulfilled.”
These asseverations of Christ were necessary as guides and
correctives to both the radical and the conservative thinking
of his time. For while it is implied in them that the prog-
ress of his kingdom will be marked by the passing away of
the law, the important distinction is made between a passing
away of it by destruction, and a passing away by fulfillment.
This distinction cannot be too clearly seen, nor too strongly
emphasized. But in this we shall be helped by first consider-
ing how much is embraced in that law which Christ came to
fulfill, but not to destroy.
It includes the Decalogue. He did not come to destroy one
of those commandments, the whole of which he summed as su-
preme love to God and equal love to our neighbor. He did not
come to paralyze or perplex the conscience, loosen the bond of
virtue, or give new license to sin. Instead of destroying, he
aimed to reconsecrate and to establish the law, by paying to it
such honor and devotion as, in the nature of things, it could not
receive from men or angels. Coming to save sinners, he under-
took their rescue only on the condition that justice should re-
main uncompromised, and holiness untarnished. Thus did
he who was above the law give to it its mightiest sanction by
his voluntary obedience and atoning death.
Nor, again, did Christ come to destroy the ritualistic or
ceremonial law. He did not destroy the Passover, nor Pente-
cost, nor the daily sacrifices of slain victims. He did not say
to the Jews, “ Leviticus is an antiquated, worthless book.
Cut it out of your parchment rolls, and from new copies of the
Scriptures see that it be rigorously excluded.” Never did
he disturb the temple worship, upbraid or ridicule the priests
for the too exact performance of their duties, nor turn back
.any who were going to God’s house with either money for its
440
The Law Passing Away, not by
[July,
treasury or lambs and turtle-doves for its altar. The temple
he purified, but did not destroy. He drove out the men who
defiled its sacred precincts by fraud and avarice, but molested
none who resorted thither for instruction and worship.
Nor, again, did Jesus come to destroy the civil law. He
expressed no purpose or wish to free his countrymen from
their political obligations. Never did he pander to the plotting
discontent of party faction. Not by act or word did he
stimulate or encourage revolutionary zeal. Never did he seek
to intensify the uneasy spirit of his time, or rally it to the
support of any ambitious scheme of his own. Rather he
strove to allay the fever of insurrectionary turbulence by
directing the thoughts of his fellow-citizens to that prevailing
corruption which was the true cause of their national humilia-
tion. He had no quarrel with government. He did not com-
plain of taxation. He spoke no rebellious words against
Caesar. On an attempt to inveigle him with some disloyal
utterance, asking the loan of an imperial penny, with exquisite
adroitness he inquired who was represented by the image and
superscription stamped upon the coin ; and when it was an-
swered “ Caesar,” “ Render then,” he said, “ unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s.” As much as to say, “ Do not expect
that I shall justify your impatient bitterness under the restraints
of civil order. Do not hope for my aid in dissolving the bands
of political authority. I am not come to destroy the civil, any
more than to destroy the moral, or the ceremonial, law.”
This earnest declaration was an admonition to the progres-
sive thought of those who imagined that the Messiah was to
inaugurate a freer and easier system of both religion and gov-
ernment ; that he would discard the old for one entirely new,
with precepts less strict, and duties less onerous ; who were
weary of incessant painstaking in matters of religion ; who
were tired of restrictions, tired of exhausting performances,
tired of monotonous and never-ending routine ; who chafed
under the triple yoke of restraint, service and penalty. For
them the law was too severe in its exactions, the prophets
were too harsh in their denunciations. They wished that both
might be overthrown and pass away. At least, they longed
that both might be disarmed : the law of its rigor, the proph-
ets of their maledictions.
I8/7-]
Destruction , but by Fulfillment.
441
There was, however, another class which did not desire this,
but desired the contrary ; the class which dreaded any dis-
turbance of the old and settled order, deprecated innovation,
viewed with indignation any attempt to invalidate transmitted
requirements, or modify established usages ; the class which
insisted that the letter of the law must be punctiliously kept,
that the mint, anise and cummin must be scrupulously tithed,
that the last gnat must be strained out from every Abrahamic
wine-jar.
Now, both these classes of persons were correct in part ; in
part both were wrong. Both misjudged the nature of that
liberty which Christ was to introduce, and the characteristics
of that better future which he was to usher in. Yet a good
and true idea lay under the expectations of each. What was
right and true Jesus interpreted and retained; what was
false and injurious he exposed and rejected.
Jesus did indeed come to give freedom. It had been fore-
told of him that he would open prison-doors and give liberty
to them that are bound. Yet not an absolute freedom was
this to be, not a breaking of all bands asunder, not a casting
away of all cords. His coming was to be, indeed, the signal
for the passing away of both the law and the prophets, but this
passing away was not by any means to be a destructioti. They
were to pass away only by being exactly and perfectly fulfilled.
Not the smallest particle was to pass away by subversion, by
abrogation, nor even by relaxation. The law was to bind
in the letter until fully accomplished in spirit.
This leads us to illustrate more fully the difference between
these two modes of disappearance or passing away.
When plaster is thrown over hills of corn, or scattered over
wheat-fields, the white patches are visible for a few days, after
which they disappear, and the ground is a uniform brown or
black as before. The plaster is not, however, destroyed, be-
cause its end is fulfilled. It is not lost ; it is simply trans-
formed. It reappears in blade, stalk, ear and grain. It
passes away, but only by absorption into new and more
valuable forms. The leaves that strew the forest do not
perish. They fall, but it is only to rise again, mounting in the
stems they nourish to loftier heights, and spread out in wider
amplitudes of growth. The mould cast about our fruit-trees
442
The Law Passing Away , not by
[July,
is heavy, inert, cumbrous ; but, sought out and vitalized by the
roots, it acquires power and motion and upward impulse, and
takes on shapes of glad and living beauty, and wealth of fruit-
fulness. The great river does not dry up in its course, but
pouring on with increasing volume and momentum, instead of
failing at its delta, just there where it ceases to be a river, it
finds enlargement in the expanding lake or estuary. While as
affluent and prophecy the river passes away, as a fulfillment it
abides, only with freer scope and larger room. Examples, all
these, of passing away by passing into higher and more endur-
ing forms.
Thus it is — to take a single example — that the Passover
passed away by passing into the Lord’s Supper. Thus it is that
we still have a propriety and a living interest in all the typical
worship of the Old Dispensation, fulfilled and glorified as it is
in the spiritual worship of the New. Were the import of
these words of our Lord more deeply pondered, there would be
fewer of those who “ aim to depreciate Christianity by dis-
covering in it as many marks as possible of Jewish weakness
and bigotry.” It were much better if they would instead turn
their thoughts to the nobler object of elevating that older wor-
ship by tracing in it the rudiments and promise of Christianity.
Was it a day of shadows ? Yet shadows are resemblances, and
wherein shall the resemblance be found but in the common
truths and relations pervading both ? By means of an earthly
sanctuary' and the carnal ordinances growing out of and con-
tinually encircling around it, God manifested on his part the
same character and government toward his people, and required
on their part the same exercises of principle toward himself
which he now does under the spiritual dispensation of the
gospel. In both alike we see a pure and holy God enshrined
in the recesses of a glorious sanctuary, unapproachable by
guilty, polluted flesh, except through a medium of powerful
intercession and cleansing efficacy ; yet to those who thus
approach, most merciful and gracious, full of loving-kindness
and plenteous in redemption, while in every act of sincere
approach on their part are brought into exercise the same feel-
ings of contrition and abasement, of self-renunciation and
realizing faith, of child-like dependence and adoring gratitude.*
Fairbairn (Typology.)
!8 77-]
Destruction , but by Fulfillment.
443
The distinction we have illustrated indicates further the
methods to be employed, if moral requirements, in their aspect
of penal severity, are to pass away from those who are under
bondage to them by reason of transgression. That method is
not to take part with the criminal against the requirement.
It is not to tell him that the law is inhuman and merciless. It
is not to sympathize morbidly with him, as if he were the vic-
tim of circumstances and a martyr to civil order. It will not
do to say to the inmates of our prisons, “ The law displays a
retaliatory, vindictive spirit to immure you in these dreadful
walls, separating you from your friends and affixing to your
person the badges of dishonor.” To say that would but make
the matter a thousand times worse ; worse for the criminal, as
well as worse for society. It would encourage him in crime,
and so complete his ruin. What we desire is, that the law
may pass away from the transgressor as an object of dread and
of antipathy. And this is to be effected, not' by our destroying
the law, but by his fulfilling it. Offenders must be made to see
the wisdom, reasonableness, safety, and greater satisfaction of
virtuous citizenship, and to surrender their lawless propensities
intelligently and freely. They must be led to see that the
attitude of society toward them is not that of gratuitous and
hostile menace, but of calm justice and necessary self-defence.
Something wonderful is it to see how completely the law, as
an object of aversion and terror, passes away from the violator
of it so soon as he comes into relations with it of right and
willing obedience.
This same distinction leads us on to the true idea of both
political and religious enlightenment and freedom, and points
out how that idea is to be realized. It instructs us that the
millennium of political freedom is not to be brought in through
the destruction of government ; not by communism nor agra-
rianism ; not by the burning of decrees, codes and statutes ;
not by the tearing down of senate houses and thrones. Polit-
ical abuses, oppressions, inequalities are surely to pass away,
but not through the iconoclasm of mobs. “All the overthrows
of all the tyrannies of ancient or modern times were never
able to make corruption free. Let changes (of policy or ad-
ministration) be as specious as they may, the political suffering
will only deepen until the personal reform come to redeem the
444
The Law Passing Away, not by
[July,
land.” True, abiding freedom can be attained only as men
are instructed into the knowledge of that wherein true freedom
lies ; only as they are roused to the intelligent, hearty adoption
of those maxims of industry, frugality and integrity through
which alone law ceases to be compulsion by passing into self-
control.
And, lastly, this far-reaching declaration of Christ gives us
the true conception and method of religious freedom. Every-
where we see men chafing against restraint ; against just lim-
itations of human reason and human pride. Everywhere we
see restless desire and determined effort to break bands and
cast away cords. ‘‘Are we slaves,” demand many, “that we
must be chained down forever by menacing prohibitions, under
which the generations have groaned from the beginning? Are
we never to outgrow the narrow dogmas, hampering supersti-
tions and craven fears of ignorance and childishness ? Never
to be done with^the rusty, antiquated creeds of our forefathers ?
Must we ever gasp in the atmosphere of old and smothering
bigotry? Is it not time that we assert our majority and break
loose from the tyranny of the past ?”
There is to be progress. There is to be enlargement of
privilege. There is to be increase of spiritual liberty. But
this is not to come in the manner which many conceive. There
is to be a passing away of prohibition, restraint, dogmas; but
this is not to be by annihilation of any just obligation, nor of
any truth. Christ, the animating, guiding spirit of all true
enlightenment and progress, has purposed that better future
when men shall be free from galling yokes. But he it is who
“verily” assures us that the ends of law are not to be secured
through mere destruction of its outward forms ; he is not
deceived, and will not be mocked by that pretended superiority
to the letter which only veils a lack of its spirit. That inde-
pendence of restraint for which many sigh, is not born of radi-
cal resolutions, free-love conventions, nor of hackneyed whole-
sale denunciations of Calvinism and Puritanism. It comes, and
can come, only as the great underlying, ever-abiding principles
of civil order, moral precept and spiritual worship are incor-
porated into the soul ; only as men become free in the love of
right and of order, in perfected love towards God and man.
“In all its sacred constitution,” says Huntingdon,* “ society
^Aspects of Human Society.
iS77-]
Destruction , but by Fulfillment.
445
preaches the sacredness of law, and so points with reverent
finger from human law to the divine, and to Him in whose
breast both have their seat at last. By being servants we be-
come children and heirs. By law we gain liberty. By waiting
at the foot of Sinai we are taken up into Olivet and Tabor.
The tables of stone lean against the cross. Moses is followed
by the Messiah. Beyond the valleys of subjection rise the
eternal hills of peace. The years of unquestioning and obedi-
ent toil ended, there is proclaimed the great Sabbatic festival,
where law is love, „ and order is choice, and government is
Fatherhood, and the Ruler’s will is the impulse of every heart.”
Art. IV.— PRESBYTERIANISM ON THE FRONTIERS.*
By Rev. Joseph F. Tuttle, President of Wabash College.
The Presbytery of Philadelphia, formed “about the begin-
ning of the year 1705,” “consisted of seven ministers” and a
score of churches. This germ in half a century had grown into
two Synods, which included ninety-four ministers, and a still
greater number of churches. From that time “to the commence-
ment of the Revolutionary War the growth of the church had
been rapid and almost uninterrupted.”
When the differences between the Colonies and the mother
country were “submitted to the arbitrament of war,” the Presby-
terian Church had become a commanding power in the Middle
and Southern States. Although Mr. Jefferson, in his auto-
biography, did not name the Presbyterian clergy in his account
of the means adopted “to fire the heart of the country,” we
know from other sources that they were prominent in the
movement. He says : “We were under the conviction of the
necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which
they had fallen, as to passing events, and thought that the
appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer would be
most likely to call up and alarm their attention. * * *
*The Synod of Indiana was formally organized on the 18th of October, 1826.
On the fiftieth anniversary of that event the Synods of Indiana South, and Indiana
North, met in the First Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, which occasioned the
preparation of this historical sketch.
446 Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. [J uly,
* * We cooked up a resolution somewhat modernizing the
phrases — of the Puritans — for appointing the 1st day of June,
1774, on which the Port bill was to commence, for a day of
fasting, humiliation and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert
from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in
support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and
Parliament to moderation and justice. * * * This was in
May, 1774. * * * \ve returned home, and in our several
counties invited the clergy to meet assemblies of the people
on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of the day, and
to address to them discourses suited to the occasion.” — (Jef-
ferson's Works, I., 7.)
It is sufficient to remark that none responded with greater
zeal to this invitation than the Presbyterian ministers of the
Middle and Southern States. Until the war began our
church had shown great vigor, and was rapidly spreading in all
the States south of New England ; but with the war came
disastrous changes. The ministers were scattered, churches
enfeebled, some houses of worship were burned, others desecra-
ted by the enemy, and the community at large seemed unusually
afflicted with an extraordinary increase of impiety and infidel-
ity. And hence it was not strange that when the war closed,
our church was much weaker than when it began.
From the beginning it had been a missionary church. Its
early preachers had been famous for their extensive journeys
to preach the gospel in destitute regions. They were not con-
tent to visit the regions that could be safely and easily reached,
but many of them, with rare courage, went to the very fron-
tiers, which were often rendered dangerous by the incursions
of the Indians.
As already intimated, the immediate effect of the war on the
church was disastrous, but no sooner was it ended than new
life began to show itself. Decayed churches were resuscitated,
new ones planted, pastors installed, missionaries sent out,
young men of promise educated for the ministry; in a word,
the church once more became aggressive.
All this was preparing the way for the more perfect organiza-
tion of the church in 1 788, with the General Assembly as its high-
est judicatory. And now we reach a period of the greatest in-
terest, both from the positive opposition encountered, and the
i877-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
447
positive encroachments which our missionaries made on the
world. In the older States the French infidelity had obtained
a powerful hold on the minds of multitudes who did not hesi-
tate to denounce “ religion as mere priestcraft.” It was com-
monly reported that Mr. Jefferson himself had said, “that in
fifty years the Bible would be no more consulted than an old
almanac !”
After the war was over infidel clubs were formed, which in-
cluded large numbers of wealthy and intelligent men. These
were formed in different States. The late Mr. Israel Crane of
Bloomfield, N. J., once named the societies of this sort, which
formed a cordon from Paulus Hook through New Jersey, to
Newburg on the Hudson, and many of their prominent mem-
bers. He stated that they were violent in their opposition to
religion ; and also the remarkable fact that many of these men
came to a violent death. The late Rev. Peter Kanouse, of
Sussex County, N. J., a very intelligent witness, also made the
same statement. The purpose seemed to be to uproot Chris-
tianity.
Nor was this hostility confined to words and sneers, but in
some cases showed itself in such sports as horse-races on
the Sabbath, and even in defiling the hated meeting-houses
outside, and covering the walls within with obscene and blas-
phemous caricatures. At least one of the Presbyterian churches
in Morris County, N. J., in the immediate neighborhood of
one of the most violent of these infidel clubs, was so daubed
over with filth and caricatures as to be unfit for use, the dese-
cration not having been discovered until Sabbath morning.
Nor was this the only case. Besides this the ministers were
sometimes subjected to violence, and often were treated in the
rudest manner by these drunken and bitter opposers.
It would be easy to multiply statements of this sort, show-
ing the condition of the country when our church, begin-
ning to recover itself from the distressing demoralization of the
war, renewed its consecration to the great work of preaching
the gospel, not merely in the older regions, but in the new
and distant sections, both at the South and West. It is not
meant to assert that the difficulty was one entirely arising
from the widespread infidelity. It originated in other causes
also, as in the illiteracy of vast numbers in the remote regions,
448
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July.
where schools were few and usually poor, and also in the
alarming lack of the English Scriptures — a lack so remarkable
that the New England clergy were impelled to call the atten-
tion of the Presbyterians to it. There were whole counties in
Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee in which there was not
a church of any sort, and it was alleged that there were multi-
tudes of American people who had never attended a religious
service or heard a religious discourse. In some cases, where
a traveling minister had preached and then gone away, per-
sons convicted of sin by this means absolutely did not know of
a Christian man or woman anywhere within many miles, of
whom they could go and ask the question, “What shall we
do to be saved ?”
If now we recur to the year 1788, when our General Assembly
was formed, we shall find the beginning of great changes. The
printing of the Holy Scriptures in English had been started
only six years before ; although against the law of England,
two editions of the English Bible had been previously printed
in this country, and the circulation of the Scriptures was car-
ried forward to some extent in the destitute regions.
The condition of things in the “Old Redstone Country” — as
Western Pennsylvania was called — had become very interesting,
as also in Western New York. Soon after the Revolutionary
War the pioneers began to push westward up the Mohawk,
toward the valley of the Genesee and the shores of Lake Erie.
In like manner the bold frontiermen left the valleys of the
Susquehanna and Juniata, and, crossing the Alleghenies, set-
tled in the valleys of the Monongahela and the Allegheny.
Of the most thoroughly Presbyterian stock, these last made
the “ Old Redstone Country” scarcely less famous than Scot-
land itself for its devotion to Presbyterianism.
It is affecting to note the alarm of the General Assembly
near the close of the last century, in view of “ the profligacy
and corruption of public morals, profaneness, pride, luxury,
injustice, intemperance, lewdness, and ever)'- species of de-
bauchery and loose indulgence,” which prevailed in the older
sections of the country, as also “the formality and deadness”
of the churches. And yet the church was getting ready for
those glorious revivals which make up so marked a part of her
history, during the latter part of the last century and the first
third of the present.
i877-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
449
If the churches seemed dead in the older regions, the power
of God was wonderfully displayed in some portions of the
newer, at the West and South. Beginning with “ Morris”
Reading House” — 1740 — it seemed as if some irresistible in-
fluence were pressing God’s people to wrestle with him for
Virginia. And if we consider the origin of the movement, its
progress and its instruments, we are struck with astonishment.
That most extraordinary man, President Davies, although the
greatest among thqm, was the type of the minister who her-
alded the great revival in Virginia. Throngs followed him .
As an orator, even with his manuscripts before him, his friends
in Virginia regarded him a greater preacher even than White-
field. But it was not mere eloquence that enabled him to do
what he did. He opened the secret of his power as a pulpit
orator to a friend, and we see what was the lock of his strength.
When he preached the terrors of the Lord, he himself shud-
dered ; or the love of Jesus, he himself melted into unutterable
tenderness. Sometimes more than at others, yet habitually in
some degree, when he preached, he felt that he might not
preach again, and as if he might step from the pulpit to the
judgment-bar.
The war dealt harshly with these churches in Virginia ; but
about the time our General Assembly was organized there
came another season of extraordinary revival power to that
region. Although Davies had been away for years, there were
on that field such men as William Graham of Liberty Hall
Academy, the trainer of Archibald Alexander, and John Blair
Smith. If we may credit Dr. Alexander, the American church
has had few greater men than these. There was also James
Waddell, “the blind preacher,” whose eloquence was said to
be beyond even the lofty eulogium of Wirt. Nash Le Grand
was also a rising luminary, and William Hill, afterward “the
patriarch of Winchester,” was just coming on the stage. In
some respects not one of them was greater than Moses Hoge,
whom John Randolph believed to be the greatest divine of his
day. Drury Lacy, Vice-President of Hampden Sidney Col-
lege for a time, was another very remarkable man, who ap-
peared in what was called by Dr. Alexander “ the great revival.”
And while this work was sweeping over Virginia, young
Archibald Alexander wrote that they had “ heard of a revival
450
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
of the same kind in Western Pennsylvania, under the labors of
the Rev. Joseph Smith, the Rev. John McMillan, and others.”
He adds a remark concerning the Scotch Presbyterians of the
Valley of the Virginia, which no doubt expressed a similar
feeling among the Scotch Presbyterians in “ the Redstone
country.” The remark was this, “ the general impression was
that these religious commotions would pass away like the
morning cloud.” The fear was proved to be groundless, as
applying to Western Pennsylvania. The religious history of
this region has been very remarkable. There is no part of the
history of Presbyterianism on the frontier more so. In No-
vember, 1758, the Rev. Charles Beatty preached the first
Protestant sermon west of the Alleghenies within the walls of
Fort Pitt. The mission of Beatty and Brainard in 1763 to the
“distressed frontier inhabitants” in that region, had been pre-
vented by the renewal of savage hostilities on such a scale
that west of Shippensburg every building was burned, many
people were murdered, and many perished in the flight. Dr.
Wing speaks of the panic among the people as “one of ex-
traordinary extent and intensity.” The people “fled almost
in a body over the mountains toward Lancaster.” (Wing’s
Discourse on Presbyteries of Donegal and Carlisle 16, Cen.
Mem., West Penn., 209.) The author of “Old Redstone”
describes the pitiable condition of those who found refuge at
Shippensburg.
Although a Mr. Anderson, soon after Mr. Beatty’s visit —
probably in 1767 — was directed to preach to the people in this
region, and the Presbytery of Donegal was ordered by the
Synod “ to supply the western frontier with ten Sabbaths of
ministerial labor,” yet Dr. Eaton asserts that “the first of the
pioneer ministers who visited this region,” to prepare the way
for a permanent settlement, “ was the Rev. James Finley, in
1771. The Rev. James Powers made his first visit in 1774, and
in 1776 removed his family. (Cen. Mem., West Penn., 209,
Sprague III, 327.)
In 1775 the Rev. John McMillan, one of the most remark-
able of our pioneer preachers, made his first visit to the Red-
stone country. In 1 776 he was ordained at Chambersburg, but
on account of the hostility of the Indians did not remove his
family until 1778; but during the intervening period he him-
1877.]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
45i
self visited his selected field of labor to perform ministerial
duties among the people in that truly distressed region. He
is described by Dr. Eaton as “not attractive in personal ap-
pearance ; six feet in height, rough-hewn in features, brusque
in manner, and with a voice that was like the rumbling of
thunder.”
The Rev. Thaddeus Dodd, of New Jersey, reached the Red-
stone country in 1777 the first time, and in 1779, having been
ordained, returned for permanent settlement. For a time his
labor was within blockhouses and forts, which the people had
built for protection against the savages. It is an interesting
fact that in these unfavorable circumstances his preaching re-
sulted in a revival, which added forty converts to the church,
or rather they professed their faith before the church was or-
ganized in 1781. It was an affecting sign of the distresses of
the times, that this pioneer preacher, who had seen “converts
multiplied ” under his ministry, is said to have been on his field
four years before he administered the Lord’s Supper. In 1783
he held his first sacramental meeting in a barn.*
In 1779 a fourth man, the Rev. Joseph Smith, came to the
Redstone country" who was the worthy" co-worker of the three
already named, and who was also to exert a powerful influence
in that region as a preacher and as one of the founders of
Jefferson College. The descriptions given of him show how it
was that he should exert such a powerful influence as a pioneer
preacher. Winning in manner, imposing in person, powerful
in thought, devoted in piety, impassioned in voice and action,
he was at times overpowering in his discourses. His work as
a preacher was only exceeded in results by his relations to the
founding of Jefferson College. McMillan, Dodd and Smith,
like Tennent at Neshaminy, taught schools in their own
houses, chiefly for the purpose of training yroung men for the
ministry. And it surely was not the smallest of the results
they achieved that two colleges — now happily' one — grew out
of these schools in the wilderness.
In May 1781 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia or-
ganized the Presby'tery of Redstone, the first west of the
Alleghenies. Powers, McMillan, Dodd and Smith — all just
* Sprague iii: 358 ; Gittelt i : 262.
452
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
described — were its first members. Although its first meeting
was appointed to be held at the Laurel Hill Church, on the third
Wednesday of the following September, Dr. McMillan says
the “first Presbytery that met on this side of the mountains
was held at Mount Pleasant on the third week of October,
I783-”
Although the church edifices were few and rude for several
years, religion greatly flourished in this region. It is true that
at times the people were compelled to flee to their blockhouses
and forts, and that even in the most favorable times their cir-
cumstances were by no means inviting; yet, whether in the
grove, the log meeting-house, or the fort, they were favored
with some great religious awakenings.
In 1778 the exhortations of Joseph Patterson, in “Vance’s
Fort,” were the means of leading a score to Christ, the germ of
the Cross Creek church, of which one of the converts, the Rev.
Thomas Marquis, was the pastor for many years. (Cen. Mem.,
41.) Dr. Sprague says: “Mr. Dodd’s labors throughout his
whole ministry seem to have been attended with much more
than an ordinary blessing. Besides the regular increase of his
church from year to year, there were several seasons of special
religious interest which brought in large numbers.” He died
in 1793, while his church was still feeling the power of a great
revival.
Dr. McMillan says that from 1781 to 1794 his churches were
experiencing powerful refreshings, and that during those
thirteen years numbers were added at every sacramental occa-
sion. Indeed, it may be said that this remarkable man lived
in almost a perpetual revival during his ministry of more than
half a century. Some of these awakenings were very extensive
and wonderful in their power. They spread through Western
Pennsylvania, and reached the frontier settlements in Ken-
tucky and Tennessee.
Dr. Carnahan describes Mr. Powers also as not only an effec-
tive preacher, but a truly successful one. The Rev. Joseph
Smith was one of the most remarkable men that ever preached
on any of the frontiers, not only in his piety and gifts as a
preacher, but in the truly astonishing effects which often
attended his ministry.
If now we add to the names of the original members of the
1 8 77.] Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. 453
Redstone Presbytery, such as Joseph Patterson, Elijah Mc-
Curdy, David Smith and others, who belonged to it or to Pres-
byteries springing from it — “ able, devoted and self-denying
men, whose influence is felt at the present day” — we shall see
why Presbyterianism obtained such an overmastering influence
in Western Pennsylvania. It began with a remarkable popula-
tion, had remarkable pioneer ministers, and truly remarkable
revivals of religion. The history of it abounds in incidents
that seem like romance. Indeed, if we consider them, the re-
vivals and the results, we have no more thrilling chapter in the
history of our Church than this.
Such were the beginnings of Presbyterianism on the frontiers
of Western Pennsylvania. They were not less remarkable in
Western New York and Northern Ohio, but as the Synod of
Indiana was descended from the Presbyterianism of Western
Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky, we may omit extended
descriptions of that which has exerted so great an influence
in the northern half of Ohio, and in all the States west of
Indiana.
Our sketch will not be complete, as related to the organiza-
tion of the Synod of Indiana, without referring briefly to the
introduction and history of Presbyterianism in Kentucky.
In 1783 the Rev. David Rice began his labors in Kentucky.
In 1784 the Rev. Adam Rankin and Rev. James Crawford
came to the same field ; and in 1786 the Rev. Andrew Mc-
Clure and Rev. Thomas B. Craighead. That year these men,
with an evangelist, the Rev. Zerah Templin, were organized
into the first Presbytery in that State. Not long afterward
came Robert Marshall, a remarkable man, a convert of Dr. Mc-
Millan, and Carey H. Allen. Their journey to Kentucky was
perilous, but its results were great in extensive revivals. The
history of Presbyterianism in Kentucky is full of romantic in-
terest, and is connected with remarkable men. The church
grew in spite of the fanatical scenes connected with the re-
vivals which swept over the State during the earlier years of
the present century, and which occupy a prominent place in
the religious history of that period.
In Tennessee Presbyterianism began about 1785, and its his-
tory is not very unlike that in Kentucky. Some of the offen-
( New Series, No. 22.)
29
454 Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. [July.
sive extravagances of the great revival in the latter State were
said to have been imported from Tennessee.
Without proposing to name all the men who were influential
in these States, it is sufficient to remark that in both there
were men of very great ability, and that they gave to Presby-
terianism a hold there which it still retains. And further, the
extravagant outbreaks of religious fanaticism seemed to have
spent themselves, or to have been corrected, before the pio-
neers from that region came to this State. In other words,
the very best force of these religious movements had been
preserved for use in our own State. The wisdom, piety and
preaching power of Doak and Blackburn, in Tennessee, and
Craighead, Marshall, Allen, Blythe, Cleland, Campbell, Cam-
eron, and others, in Kentucky, did much to prepare the way
for the introduction of Presbyterianism into the new regions
north of the Ohio.
The influence of the Old Redstone Presbytery is at once
seen, even before the close of the last century, in the pioneer
work in Ohio in 1799, when the Rev. James Hughes began his
labor in Eastern Ohio, at Mt. Pleasant. In 1802 the Rev.
James Snodgrass began his pastorate at Steubenville. Mean-
while “ Father Rice,” in 1790, had organized the first Presby-
terian church in Cincinnati, but it was not able to build for
itself a house of worship until 1792. The Presbytery of Wash-
ington— the first north of the Ohio — was organized in 1799, but
in 1802 it included only five pastors and thirty-two congrega-
tions. If now we trace the history of Presbyterianism in Ohio
down to the date of our own Synod in 1826, we shall find that to
a large extent its ministers were either directly from Kentucky,
or the Redstone. To this general statement there are many
exceptions, especially in the northern part of Ohio, where the
New England element expressed itself in its relations to our
church in “ the Plan of Union.” The sterner type of Presby-
terianism which Dr. Joshua L. Wilson of Cincinnati, Dr. Robert
G. Nelson of Chillicothe, and Dr. James Hoge of Columbus rep-
resented, fairly embodied the views of the great body of our
church in the south half of the State and the eastern counties,
of which Steubenville was a center. The church had made
great progress in numbers and material strength. It held pro-
tracted meetings, sacramental meetings, and even camp-meet-
*8 77-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
455
ings, quite similar to those which occurred in the ministry of
McMillan of Western Pennsylvania, and Cleland of Kentucky.
Our church in that State then had possession of the two State
Universities at Athens and Oxford, at both of which places
many were educated for her ministry. It, in a word, was a
great power in Ohio.
We have thus sketched in a very general outline the several
religious antecedents of the Synod of Indiana. In the eastern
portions of the country there was the extraordinary outpour-
ing of God’s Spirit as the last century closed, and repeatedly
during the first quarter of the present century. The same was
true of Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Ohio. It might be rash to assert that in these new re-
gions our church grew faster and more vigorously than other
churches. It is enough to say that in spite of the sparseness
.and the poverty of the people, and the occasional outbreak of
fanaticism, as in Tennessee and Kentucky, the Presbyterian
Church had a vigorous growth, as the Assembly’s minutes and
•other authorities prove. These regions were invested from
:the very first with all the interest of romance, and attracted to
themselves multitudes of people who easily adopted our faith
and polity. But whatever we may say of these regions in this
.respect, we find the antecedents of our Indiana Presbyterian-
ism to have been of the type of the original Synod of New
York and Philadelphia, of Virginia, the Old Redstone, and
Kentucky. Northern Ohio was powerfully affected by the di-
rect emigration of New Englanders, and also that of Central
and Western New York. About the time the Connecticut Mis-
sionary Society, and then the American Home Missionary So-
ciety, began to send out in large numbers the graduates of
New England colleges and seminaries, many of the churches
in the western half of Ohio, as well as on the Reserve, were
modified into a type that did not harmonize at once with the
other type just named. But in either case it was strongly im-
bued with the revival spirit that frequently shook with Pente-
, costal power the churches of our order, East and West and
.South, during the half-century 1783-1830. It is a record of
.antecedents of which our Synod has no reason to be ashamed.
We now reach the part of our narrative that pertains to the
.planting and growth of our church to the communities north
45^ Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. [Jiilyr
of the Ohio. In 1787 Dr. Manasseh Cutler had negotiated
with Congress for the purchase of several millions of acres, in-
eluding the tract of the “ Ohio Company,” in the region of
Marietta, and that of Judge Symmes in the Miami country.
On the 7th of April, 1788, Gen. Rufus Putnam, with forty-seven
men, most of whom were Revolutionary soldiers, landed at
Marietta; on the 13th of July Governor St. Clair, by procla-
mation, defined the boundaries of Washington county, the first
in territory of the Northwest ; “ on the 20th of July the Rev.
William Breck, a New England man, and one of the Ohio
Company, delivered on the banks of the Muskingum the first
sermon ever preached to white men in the present State of
Ohio” ; and on the 2d of September, with religious and civic
ceremonies of an imposing character, the first Court of Com-
mon Pleas was opened at Marietta. On this occasion Dr.
Cutter officiated as chaplain.
As this eminent clergyman and scientist was on his way to
the Muskingum in August, 1788, he had met Judge John
Cleves Symmes, at Bedford, Pa., on his way with his family
and some colonists to the Miami. The advance guard, under
Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, reached Cincinnati in De-
cember of this year, Symmes himself not getting there until
the following February.
While the New Englanders, under the lead of Putnam, at-
tacked the wilderness of the Northwest at Marietta, and the
New Jersey colonists, under Symmes, attacked it at Cincinnati,
other brigades of colonists were subduing the Genesee country.
From 1761 to 1788 the Moravians, on the Muskingum and on
the Cuyahoga, were striving to introduce Christian institutions
among the savages. While several sales of lands on the
Western Reserve were effected by Connecticut as early as
1788, and to the Connecticut Land Company in 1795, the first
permanent settlement in Northern Ohio was not effected until
1796. How difficult of access all these regions north of the
Ohio were may be inferred from the length of time consumed
by the various bands of colonists to Marietta, Cincinnati, and
Cleveland. Whittlesey says that “ for thirty years before 1788
rude highways had been in existence over the ridges of t+ie
Allegheny Mountains, made by Braddock and Forbes, to the
forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh. From thence they could
1877.]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
457
float onward with the stream”; but in 1798 Edwards and
Doane were ninety-two days on their journey from Connecti-
cut to Cleveland. James Kingsbury reached Conneaut in the
fall of 1796, by a journey very tedious and even perilous, and
such were the straits of his family that during the following
winter, the snow being too deep for the oxen, “ he was obliged
to drag a hand-sled to Erie — thirty miles — and obtaining a
bushel of wheat to draw it himself to Conneaut.” Atwater
says that “ Kingsbury and his hired man drew a barrel of beef
the whole distance at a single load.”*
To reach the new country under the most favorable circum-
stances during the first twenty-five years after the military
colonists landed at Marietta, in 1788, was a tedious and some-
times dangerous undertaking. Dr. Cutter, in the summer of
1788, took about six weeks to travel by sulky and canoe from
Massachusetts to Marietta, and the late Mrs. Judge Burnet, as
did many other ladies, repeatedly made the journey from New
York to Cincinnati on horseback. To reach the great valley,
in those days was no child’s play, and even at a later day,
during the existence of the first bank in Chillicothe, so slow
were the public conveyances and so bad the roads, that a man
who was offered a large reward to get to Philadelphia in time
to stop the payment of a draft fraudulently obtained, preferred
to make the journey on foot, and actually did so, obtaining
the reward !
According to Judge Law, the French had effected settle-
ments, as trading and military posts, both at Kaskaskia and
Vincennes, “ as early as the year 1710 or ’11 — probably the
former.” — (Law’s Vincennes, p. 12.) In 1796 Volney found
not only the French people at the latter place, but “ new
settlers from the neighboring States.” In 1798 there were
twelve families of these new settlers in the place, and in 1799
Col. Henry Vanderburgh, an old army officer, and a citizen of
Vincennes, was a member of the Legislative Council, which
constituted the upper house of the first Territorial Legislature
that met north of the Ohio. The following year the territory
of Indiana was organized, including all that now constitutes
the States of Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. In 1804 an im-
Whittlesey’s Cleveland, p. 264 ; Howe’s Ohio, p. 39.
458
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers..
[July-,
mense portion of the Louisiana purchase west of the Missis-
sippi was added to it. Dillon says the entire Territory in
1800 was estimated to have a civilized population of 4,875. In
1808 this immense region had about 28,000,. of whom some
11,000 were within the present State of Indiana. In 1807,.
according to Dillon, there were in Indiana “ 2,524 free white
males, of twenty-one years and upward.” Of these 2,516 were
in the south quarter of the State, or south of a line connecting
Lawrenceburg and Vincennes.
The General Assembly of Virginia had granted Gen. Geo.
Rogers Clarke, and the men who assisted him in the capture of
Vincennes and other French posts^450,ooo acres of land, which
are chiefly in Clarke County, Indiana, and in 1783 passed an
act establishing Clarksville at the Falls of the Ohio, a few
miles above New Albany. In 1801 Clarke County was estab-
lished. In a private letter the indefatigable historian of
Indiana, John B. Dillon, states that “ the earlier civilized settle-
ments within the original boundaries of Clarke County were,
without an exception, founded on the borders of the Ohio
river. A few soldiers were stationed at a small fort that was
erected at the site of Jeffersonville before the year 1789, and a
block-house, which bore the name of ‘ Armstrong’s Station,’
was built in 1795 on the right bank of the Ohio, about seven-
teen miles above the Falls. Clarksville was a small village in
1808, and in the year 1810 the only villages on the lndiana side
of the river, between the Miami and the Wabash, were Law-
renceburg, Madison, Jeffersonville, and Clarksville. Charles-
town, in Clarke County, and Corydon in Harrison, were both
founded about 1808. Very few of the founders of these vil-
lages were from New England. The most of them came from
Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina, and a few from
Pennsylvania.”
In 1791 eight men, bearing the name of Hayes, and two
named Miller, settled in the Miami bottom, near Lawrence-
burg. In 1796, and again in 1798, other families came to
Dearborn County, so that in 1800 the settlements there were
quite strong. At Rising Sun, in Ohio County, adjoining Dear-
born, we learn from a discourse by Lthe Rev. B. F. Morris,,
that in 1798 emigrants began to find homes at that pleasant
spot on the Ohio. From a remark of Ferret Dufour, in his
i877-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
459
history of the “ Early Times in Switzerland County,” it may
be inferred that the earliest date of settlement there was 1797,
although John James Dufour did not begin at Vevay until
1798.
It is very probable that emigrants had settled at other points
on the river than those mentioned before 1808, where Madison
was located. The Indiana Gazetteer of 1849 says: “ The first
settlements of any consequence were made from 1790 to 1800
in the towns along the river, so that the inhabitants, on the
first notice of the approach of the Indians, might escape into
Kentucky.” — ( Ind . Gaz., for 1849, P- l92-)
We have the following dates, which belong to this sketch :
The first settlement at Vincennes was about 1710 or T 1, and
American settlers at the same place about 1795 ; in 1789 there
was a small military post at Jeffersonville, and from 1791 to
1800 settlements were made at Lawrenceburg, Rising Sun,
Vevay, “ Armstrong’s Station,” and probably at some other
points on the Ohio. In 1808 such points as Madison, Corydon,
and Charlestown were settled. In 1800 the Territory was or-
ganized. The first county — Knox — was organized in 1790, the
second — Clarke — 1801, Dearborn County in 1802, and Harrison
in 1808. “A court of civil and criminal jurisdiction was
organized at Vincennes, June, 1779” — the first after the con-
quest by Clarke, and on the 4th of November, 1790, “the
judges of the Superior Court of the Northwest Territory” ap-
pointed regular times for holding courts at Vincennes. —
(Dillon 169-297.) “ The first school-teacher in Indiana, of
whom we have any account, was M. Rivet, a Romish priest at
Vincennes, who opened a school at that place in 1793. The
second school was near Charlestown, in Clarke County, in 1803.
— (Daniel Hough, in Schools of Indiana, pp. 53-4.) And on
the 4th of July, 1804, Elihu Stout published at Vincennes
The Indiana Gazette , the first newspaper within the present
bounds of Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. — (Law’s Vincennes,
p. 138.)
It is said that in 1804 the Rev. Peter Cartwright preached
the first discourse ever delivered by a Protestant minister in
Indiana. In the spring of 1805 the Rev. Thomas Cleland
preached the first Presbyterian sermon at Vincennes. So far
as we know, this was the first delivered in Indiana.
460 Presbyterianism on the Frontiers . [July,
The Territory of Indiana had been organized six years when
the Rev. Samuel B. Robertson formed the first Presbyterian
church within the present bounds of this State. This was the
“ Indiana Church,” not far from Vincennes. In 1807 a second
church was formed, which did not live long. If this weakling,
that long since died, be excepted, the second church formed
was at Charlestown in 1812. From this time until the forma-
tion of the Synod of Indiana, in the autumn of 1826, the
growth of our church was not very rapid, but it was healthy.
The new Synod included forty churches, among which may be
named that at Washington, 1814, Madison, 1815, Salem, New
Albany, Livonia, Blue River and Pisgah, 1816, Bloomington,
1819, Hanover, 1820, Evansville, 1821, Indianapolis, 1823,
Crawfordsville, Franklin and Columbia, 1824, and several
others. Among the ministers who had preached statedly or
occasionally we find the names of Samuel B. Robertson, Sam-
uel T. Scott, Joseph B. Lapsley, John Todd, John M. Dickey,
William Robinson, Thomas C. Searle, James McGrady, James
H. Johnston, William W. Martin, Daniel C. Banks, James
Balch, John F. Crowe, Isaac Reed, Baynard R. Hall, Charles
C. Beatty, David C. Proctor, George Bush, Samuel G. Lowry,
and quite a large number besides.
Until 1824 the Transylvania Presbytery of Kentucky in-
cluded Indiana. On the first of April of that year the Pres-
bytery of Salem was formed, the first in Indiana, and was at-
tached to the Synod of Kentucky. According to the Salem
Presbytery Reporter , there were seven ministers in it, and Gil-
let t adds, “ most of the churches in the State.” In 1825 the
original Presbytery was divided into the three Presbyteries of
Salem, Madison and Wabash, the aggregate strength of which
amounted to fourteen ministers and forty-three churches.
(Dickey’s Brief History, 21). The Assembly’s minutes for
1826 illustrate the weakness of the churches at that time. The
eleven churches of Salem Presbytery had a total of 478 com-
municants ; the thirteen churches of Madison Presbytery had
536 communicants ; and there was no report from the churches
of Wabash Presbytery. From what we know of these churches,
we shall do no injustice in saying that the entire membership
of all the Presbyterian churches in Indiana did not exceed
I, 500.
1 877.] Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. 461
By the time the Synod was formed, October 18, 1826, some
changes had been effected. Our first church had been formed
in 1806, and after that such towns as Madison, Charlestown,
Corydon, Evansville, New Albany, Princeton, Terre Haute,
Crawfordsville, Lafayette, Indianapolis, Columbus, Franklin,
and some others had been settled. The Territorial capital
had been removed from Vincennes to Corydon in 1813. In
1816 Indiana was admitted into the Union. In 1820 Indian
apolis was located, and in 1825 became the capital of the
State. The population, from about 11,000 in 1807, had in-
creased to about 250,000 in 1826.
And yet this new country was not very attractive in many
respects. The author of the. Indiana Gazetteer for 1849, refer-
ring to the transfer of the State capital from Corydon to Indian-
apolis in 1825, says it required ten days to perform the journey
of only one hundred and twenty-five miles ; and, moreover,
that “ on two occasions, after hours of weary travel, the writer
had found himself very unwillingly at his starting-place of the
morning ; and his good friends, the present Postmaster at In-
dianapolis, and the Auditor of State, after a day’s travel, as
they thought, toward Cincinnati, were back at their own town,
which they took for some unknown settlement in the wilder-
ness. And another traveler from Ohio, when asked if he had
been through Indiana, replied that he could not tell with cer-
tainty, but he thought he had been pretty nearly through it in
some places ! ”
Although emigration was making inroads into the northern
half of the State, the most of the population was thinly scat-
tered over the southern half, and, according to Dillon, the
most of it was from the slave States ; and in spite of the or-
dinance of 1787, there were in Indiana nearly 200 slaves in
1826. As for the condition of the country, we may learn it
from the statements of those who visited it in early times.
In 1822 the Rev. John Ross made a missionary tour from
the Miami valley to Fort Wayne, and he describes the jour-
ney. One night the wolves howled about their little encamp-
ment, and when not far from their destination they were met
by a terrible snow storm ; their wagon wheels were frozen fast
in the mud ; they sought in vain to light a fire, and at last,
leaving their wagon with its contents in the care of a dog,
462
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
they made their way to Fort Wayne, reaching- it late at night.
And yet, the brave man, the next day being the Sabbath,
preached twice in the Fort. Between 1822 and 1826 he made
five such missionary tours to Fort Wayne. — ( Williams' Fort
Wayne , 13).
This venerable patriarch passed away at Tipton, Indiana,
March 1 1, 1876, aged ninety-two years, having spent more than
half a century" in the ministry" in this State and Ohio. His
history is one of singular interest, and his ministerial life was
crowned with unusual success.
When Dr. Post reached Logansport, Christmas day, 1829, it
was “ a town of thirty or forty families — a community number-
ing between two and three hundred. Dispersed in the coun-
try were eight or ten log cabins, holding the entire residue of
Cass county. We were literally on the confines where civil-
ized man had overtaken the savage, and they had stopped for
a day and struck hands. . . . Wild forest and prairie, un-
occupied by the white man, stretched away westward over Il-
linois to ‘ the Father of Waters,’ and in the direction of the
Great Lakes to an almost indefinite expanse ; toward the
rising sun, and the remote southeast and south were spread
out ‘ the solemn woods.’ Some rude fixtures of the French
trader were found at long intervals on the large water-courses.
On nearly every side lay a wide extent of unorganized terri-
tory". and all around was a dark, massy solitude. Out of Fort
Wayne and Logansport there were not in Indiana, north of
the Wabash, 300 inhabitants. From several points of the com-
pass a traveler, day after day, might have taken his course in
a direct line to this place without his eye being cheered with
even the roughest quarters of the backwoodsman.” He de-
scribes his journey in December, 1829, from Madison to
Logansport on horseback, requiring nine days of hard rid-
ing, “ with roads which were almost a continuous morass —
long, weary miles of a deep, half-liquid compound of earth,
water, snow, and ice — roads without bridges, high waters,
impassable fords, and with ‘swimming horse,’ and sometimes
his rider, too, through full angry currents.” — (. Post's Retro-
spect, 9, 10.)
If we had time to cull hints and more positive statements
from various sources within reach, we should find that Indiana,
1 877.] Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. 463,
although ten years a State in 1826, was a vast wilderness that
was only just beginning to tremble before the axe of the pio-
neer. In 1822 that truly able man, the late Mr. John Beard,
found only one cabin between Indianapolis and the cabin or
two built at Crawfordsville. And that very year Mr. Charles
Beatty, now our venerable patriarch at Steubenville, riding
from Terre Haute to Crawfordsville, to preach the first sermon
there, and to perform the first marriage in the county, encoun-
tered several wolves near where the village of Warrland now
is, and performed both the religious services referred to in an
unfloored cabin which had not even a door. The bridegroom
of that Sabbath, hearing that a minister was to be there, had
gone the week before to Indianapolis to get his license — the
eleventh issued in Marion county — and the journey required
nearly four days’ hard riding, although the distance was only
a little more than forty miles.
As late as 1829, Dr. Thomson, our missionary in Syria, took
three hard days’ riding to make that same journey one way.
And even as late as 1834, a member of one of the Wabash Col-
lege families was two days in the stage-coach going from Craw-
fordsville to Lafayette, and thence made the journey by
steamers down the Wabash and up the Ohio, and thence by
stage-coach to New Hampshire. Chicago was a trading post,
to which farmers in Central Indiana hauled their wheat, ex-
changing a load of it for a barrel or two of salt. The hogs of
Indiana were driven to Louisville and Cincinnati for market at
ruinously small prices ; and the cattle and horses were driven
over the mountains to Eastern markets by journeys so long and
expensive that the producers had but little left them when the
expenses were paid.
As an illustration of the times, it may be added that Maj.
Ambrose Whitelock, for several years land receiver at Craw-
fordsville, was accustomed to put in kegs the specie he received
for lands, and to send large sums of money in this shape by a
teamster without guard to Louisville, a distance of nearly two
hundred miles. In one case the wagon was upset and one or
more of the kegs burst. The man gathered up the shining
treasures and delivered the whole safely to the Government
office at Louisville.
While the local history of Indiana has received no very
464
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
general attention, there are a few historical discourses which
abound in sketches of the State as it was fifty years ago.*
Dr. Beatty, in 1822, missionated from Vincennes to Craw-
fordsville, but he found only here and there a settlement. That
indefatigable itinerant and organizer of churches, the Rev.
Isaac Reed, everywhere found himself in the wilderness, ex-
cept as occasionally he emerged into the small settlements
that were indeed “few and far between.” The pioneer was
raising his axe against the forest, but as yet he had made
little impression. It was still a “massy solitude.”
In his fine paper on the history of the first Presbyterian
Church in Franklin, Judge Banta presents to us the picture of
the first party that settled at that point in 1823, “wearied and
foot-sore,” and forced to camp out for the night ; and such were
the trials from deep mud, undrained swamps and dense forests,
that “we may well imagine that it was in many instances a very
struggle for life.” — (Pres. Ch., Franklin, 122-5.) 1° 1824 Rev.
Baynard R. Hall, in describing Bloomington, says that “east
of it was an uninhabited wilderness for forty miles.” And as
early as 1829, when the Rev. David Montfort went with his
family from Oxford, Ohio, to Terre Haute, the journey of 160
miles was “through an almost unbroken forest.”
Mr. Reed, in 1827, describes some of the largest towns in the
State. Madison and Charleston had about 1,200 people each;
Jeffersonville, 800; Vincennes, 1,000; Terre Haute — “a hand-
some little village of white buildings” — 300 ; Bloomington,
400; Indianapolis, 800. It has “a well-finished meeting-house
and settled minister,” and “the attention to good order and to
religion is favorable.” Mr. Reed did not see much in the
common schools to praise, and the State has “many men and
women who cannot read at all.” But there was much “ true
hospitality. There is much equality among the people. * *
A man is an idle and lazy fellow if he does not soon get a
farm of his own. Money is scarce and provisions low. It is
very easy to lay out money, but very hard to get it back again.”
*The sketch of Fort Wayne by Jesse L. Williams, Dr. Post’s Retrospect, Wil-
liamson Wright’s Pioneer of Cass County, Judge Santa’s Franklin, Father John-
ston’s Forty Years’ Ministry in Indiana, are charming specimens of our local
historical literature. There are books and documents of a similar, kind and
value.
i877-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
465
And this very year that the Synod was formed Mr. Reed
describes his journey out of Indiana in the month of May.
He speaks £)f leaving Indianapolis and “entering the woods
on the road to Centerville.” It is difficult to realize, as we are
now whirled so easily over the railway between the two points
named, the sorrows of our pioneer on his way to happier
regions at the East. One day he only traveled thirteen miles.
At some places he found the high waters had made great con-
fusion among the log causeways, floating the logs in every
direction. Often the mud was so deep that his wife had to
get out and make her way on foot, while he “ led the horse by
the check rein, walking before him, and frequently with the
mud and water as deep and deeper than his boots !” On the
fourth day he passed through Centerville, sixty miles from
Indianapolis.
To go from Owen county, in this State, to Essex county, in
New York, had taken Mr. Reed “ eight weeks and a day.” —
(Reed’s Christian Traveler, 222-233, etc.)
These facts are mentioned as affording glimpses of Indiana
as it was fifty years ago. It was on the frontier, or nearly so,
and it was famous for the obstacles which hindered rapid loco-
motion. Goods were wagoned from the Ohio, or brought up
the White or the Wabash, with great labor and cost. The pro-
duce of the country was worth little on account of the distance
of the markets and the difficulty of reaching them. We can
hardly do honor to the pioneer work of those who organized
our first Synod without thus recalling the Indiana of half a
century ago, so different from the Indiana of to-day.
The small numbers and strength of our church have already
been referred to, and it will be readily seen how small the fig-
ures are in comparison with the present ; but Father Johnston,
in his delightful “ Forty Years’ Ministry in Indiana,” says that
the Salem Presbytery in 1825, within eight months, “held no
less than eight distinct meetings at points remote from each
other. * * * In performing these laborious and self-deny-
ing duties, so important in their bearing on the spiritual
interests of our State, these fathers and brethren spent weeks
of precious time and traveled many hundred miles. * * *
At that time traveling was for the most part on horseback, and
often with no little difficulty even in that way. But labor and
466
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
toil and difficulty did not deter those indefatigable pioneers
from the full discharge of the duties, which the circumstances
in which they were placed required at their hands.”
The Rev. Isaac Reed says — “My travels in Indiana in 1824
were 2,480 miles.” Now he is at Salem, or Charlestown in the
far south, and then at Indiamapolis or Crawfordsville, and anon
at Terre Haute, or across the river at Paris in Illinois. The
first licensure was at Charlestown in 1824, and the first ordina-
tion at Bloomington in 1825. In this last year — 1825 — Reed
says “ there were six ordinations in the Presbyterian Church
in Indiana.” He attended four of them himself. It is really
wonderful to note this man’s journeys on horseback through
this great wilderness, but it was only more wonderful than the
tours of other “ preachers of the Word ” in that we have his
record of what he did, while we have little record of what they
did. Such men as Proctor, and Dickey, and Crowe, and Martin,
and Johnston, and others, accomplished numerous long jour-
neys. Proctor rode regularly fora time between Bloomington
and Indianapolis. Johnston made frequent missionary tours;
Dickey was constantly in the saddle, riding from “ The Pocket ”
to “ Mouth of Eel”; as was also Crowe, who made at least one
extended journey through Indiana and Illinois, to explore the
country with reference to the planting of churches. And this
was only a specimen of his missionary tours.
These missionary scouts were soon joined by others as brave —
James Thomson of Crawfordsville, James N. Carnahan of Day-
ton, Martin M. Post of Logansport, Edward O. Hovey and
Caleb Mills, of Wabash College, David Montfort of Franklin,
and many others. Montfort was a marvel of heroic power and
enthusiasm, who on account of his crippled condition had to
be lifted on and off his horse, and yet made long missionary
journeys, not only among his own people, but in the State.
Jesse L. Williams, of Fort Wayne, then a young surveyor,
who had stopped over Sabbath at Knightstown, heard this
resolute and able man preach twice. It was no uncommon
thing, as related by Dr. Cleland and others, for these mission-
aries to lose their way in the woods, or to be overtaken by
night far from any habitation. So far from esteeming the
hardship as great, they felt themselves happy if they had flint
1 877*] Presbyterianism on the Frontiers. 467
and tinder with which to kindle a fire both for warmth and
protection.
Dr. Post, in his “ Retrospect,” speaks of “ the long rides
several times every year to Presbyteries and Synods, often dis-
tant from sixty to two hundred miles,” and of “ the missionary
excursions,” even as far as the Lake, “ organizing churches,
preaching and exploring.”
And did space permit it would not be difficult to cull from
many sources other incidents, which show how great were the
embarrassments and hardships of our pioneer ministers in this
State. And yet Dickey, and Martin, and Crowe, and Johnston,
and Carnahan, and their worthy peers, could have adopted as
their own the eloquent words of Dr. Post, who has just gone to
his rest. In his“ Retrospect ” he said : “ Nor have I regretted
my choice of a place. Unworthy to serve Christ anywhere, I
have found here reasons for attachment, and have made no
sacrifices , none which can be mentioned , when the eye is fixed on
Gethseman# and Calvary."
Father Johnston, in his “ Forty Years’ Ministry,” describes the
organization of the Synod, as one who took part in the act,
and I quote his words. After showing that the Presbytery of
Salem had been divided into three, as already referred to, he
says that “ by an act of the General Assembly of the Presby-
terian Church, adopted May 29th, 1826, these three Presbyte-
ries, together with the Presbytery of Missouri, were constituted
into a synod denominated the Synod of Indiana. Agreeably
to the appointment of the General Assembly, this Synod held
its first meeting at Vincennes on the 1 8th day of October, 1826.
There were present at that meeting eight ministers and twelve
ruling elders. Other brethren would have attended had they
not been detained at their homes by sickness. The following
are the names of the ministers who were permitted to be pres-
ent at that first synodical meeting ever held west of the State
of Ohio and north of Mason and Dixon’s line : From Salem
Presbytery but one minister attended, Tilly H. Brown; from
Wabash Presbytery there were three, Samuel T. Scott, George
Bush and Baynard R. Hall; Madison Presbytery furnished the
same number, John M. Dickey, John F. Crowe and James H.
Johnston ; from Missouri Presbytery, which included the whole
State of Missouri, the only minister present was Salmon Gid-
468
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
[July,
dings of St. Louis; while from Illinois, whose entire territory-
constituted the great central portion of the Synod, not a soli-
tary representative appeared.”
And such were the small but grand beginnings of the synod-
ical organization, which included nearly all there was of Presby-
terianism in Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, not to speak of
Michigan, with all the West and Northwest. On the territory
defined as belonging to the Synod of Indiana, as it was fifty
years ago, with its four feeble presbyteries, there are now six
synods and twenty-four presbyteries, including seven hundred
and fifty-eight ministers, nine hundred and ninety-four churches,
and seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and eighty mem-
bers. In all other respects the growth has been as marked.
It is not necessary to carry this investigation farther, nor to
enter into details at any great length. Indiana, fifty years ago,
was described in the Assembly’s narrative as having “ an im-
mense territory lying waste without laborers to cultivate it.
Now and then a traveling missionary scatters the seed of the
kingdom.” And yet the churches in these vast wastes were not
only few, but in one year five became extinct for want of min-
isters. The General Assembly speaks of these destitutions in
Indiana, and the feeble churches dying for lack of ministers.
And was it so strange that with our highest judicature saying
officially, “ they are our brethren, and they cry to us for help,"
that such a want should have pressed from the agonized and
beseeching churches in the wilderness its tzvo Christian colleges?
Of what has occurred since the 1 8th of October, 1826, be it
bright or dark, be it sweet or bitter, be it of the nature of ag-
gressive warfare or unfraternal strife, it is not necessary here to
speak. In the reminiscences of those times there is much
both to gladden and to sadden us ; many things we could wish
were undone ; but, on the whole, we shall find that the Presby
terian Church has made progress in all respects, in the number
of its churches and their strength, in its financial and moral
power, in its educational institutions, and in most other respects.
There are now single churches in this State that have more
wealth than all our churches in 1826. There are men, not a
few, who commune at our altars, who singly can endow either
of our colleges, or build institutions for the unfortunate. We
are not poor, and if we will, we can overshadow the State itself
1877-]
Presbyterianism on the Frontiers.
469
by the magnitude of our endowments and the magnificence of
our churches. The Synod of 1826 was weak in its wealth and
its constituency, but it was glorious in its missionary zeal and
self-denial. The Synod of 1876, inspired with the spirit of the
men of ’26, have numbers, intelligence, organization, wealth,
force to make our church “ fair as the moon, clear as the sun,
and terrible as an army with banners.” With not an exception,
the ministers who met in Vincennes just fifty years ago, are
gone. A year ago our venerable Johnston was the sole sur-
vivor, but he, too, has fallen asleep, full of years and glory.
Brown, Scott, Bush, Hall, Dickey, Crowe and Giddings had
all been summoned away, and Johnston alone lingered. And
now he, too, has taken his departure to join the fellowship of
the saints in heaven. And if we add another decade, bringing
our church down to that period when she was about to be met
by divisions, we find that the fathers who belonged to that pio-
neer period, with only here and there an exception, have join-
ed the great church on the other side of the flood. A few men
remain, crowned with the glories of long service in this field,
like Carnahan, and Hovey, and Mills, and Chase, and Henry
Little, and Hawley, and Kent, and Stewart, and Scott. But,
one by one, they are passing away. We have just laid in his own
new tomb the remains of our St. John, our dear and venerable
Post, and also our patriarchal Ross. And thus they pass away
into the heavens, but as the fathers of our church — the pio-
neers— leave to us the work they so well begun ; and we shall
prove our admiration of them by carrying forward with great zeal
and power the work they loved and ennobled, to a glory they
never dreamed of.
(New Series, No. 22.)
30
470
Total Depravity.
[July,
Art. V.— TOTAL DEPRAVITY.
By Henry A. Nelson, D. D., Geneva, N. Y.
ASSUMING that human nature, as found in every individual
specimen of it, is depraved, the degree or the intensity of this
depravation becomes a subject of serious inquiry. If all man-
kind are morally and spiritually depraved, to what extent, or
in what degree, are they so? If we must confess that our
human depravity is universal, must we couple with this the
confession that it is total ? As God’s ambassadors to men,
must we not only affirm the universal depravity of mankind,
but must we also insist that it is a total depravity?
In the very beginning of such an inquiry it behooves us to
remember that what is true on this subject is likely to be offen-
sive to those of whom it is true — to men generally — to our-
selves. There can be no reasonable doubt that mankind are
much more depraved than it is pleasant to them to believe or
to be told. We certainly have a natural pride which repels
the imputation of depravity, of perverseness, of sin. We
ought not to think it strange if the natural pride of our hearts
renders it difficult to accept the view of ourselves which our
understandings may find to be actually given in the Bible.
This liability is well stated by Dr. McCosh : * “We are
afraid to examine ourselves, lest humbling disclosures should be
made. And when we have the courage to examine our hearts,
prejudice dims the eyes, vanity distorts the objects seen, the
treacherous memory brings up only the fair and flattering side
of the picture, and the deceived judgment denies the sinful
action, explains away the motives, or excuses the deed in the
circumstances.”
In all human jurisprudence this liability to too favorable
judgment of ourselves is recognized and guarded against.
Nothing could be proposed which would universally be pro-
nounced more absurd than to allow any man a place on a jury
whose verdict would involve a judgment upon his own charac-
ter. All literature, and all conversation, are pervaded by the
sentiment that no power has gifted us, or is likely to gift us,
with the ability “ to see ourselves as others see us,” or to see
*Divine Government, p. 362.
IS77-]
Total Depravity .
471
ourselves altogether as we are. It clearly is our duty to be
carefully on our guard against prejudice in favor of ourselves,
while we study the question now proposed.
The teachers of religion must also be faithful to the doctrine
of the Bible as they find it, however distasteful it may be to
those to whom they are sent. The surgeon must acquire forti-
tude to cut steadily and firmly, undeterred by the vvrithings or
the cries of his patient. True kindness requires this of him.
On the other hand, no doubt, this is a subject on which the
truth may be spoken with unnecessary harshness ; may be pre-
sented in a manner and in language needlessly offensive.
Thus may hearers or readers be prevented from attending to
truth, which it is necessary for them to receive in order to that
conviction of sin without which they will not seek the Saviour.
It is our duty to understand this truth so thoroughly, and to
learn to state it so justly and so well, that, on the one hand, we
shall not needlessly repel men from the consideration of it ; nor,
on the other hand, shall we explain it away, take all its own
proper pungency out of it, and reduce it to a soul-destroying
opiate. With such care, and in such a spirit, let us proceed
with the inquiry, Are all mankind by nature totally depraved ?
1. It is not true that all mankind are depraved in the high-
est degree that is possible. In other words, it is not true that
all are as bad as they can be. This is not true, indeed, of any
one of the race. On the contrary, the Scriptures themselves
affirm of some very bad men, that they are still growing worse.
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiv-
ing and being deceived.” — 2 Tim. iii : 13. This would clearly
be impossible if they were already as bad as they are capable
of becoming.
2. It is not true that all mankind are equally bad. Many
passages of Scripture indicate various degrees of sinfulness or
ill-desert in different persons and classes of persons. Particu-
larly the scriptural representations of God’s judgment show
that it will be a discriminating judgment ; that in the day of
judgment it will be “ more tolerable ” for some than for others.
— Matt. : xi : 20, 24, x : 1 5. xii : 41, 42.
3. It is not true that every movement of unregenerate
human nature is, per se, sinful. We have the record of_ our
Saviour being much pleased with a man of whom, neverthe-
472
Total Depravity.
[July,
less, He said that he “ lacked one thing”; and the sequel con-
strains us to think that it was a fatal defect in his character.
Mark : x : 21.
Says Dr. McCosh: “ Does any man stand up and say, I was
in a virtuous state at such and such a time, when I was defend-
ing the helpless and relieving the distressed ? We admit at
once that these actions are becoming. . . If we could
judge these actions apart from the agent, we should unhesi-
tatingly approve of them.”"
Some one may say that if we cannot judge the actions apart
from the agent, we have no right to judge the agent except by
his actions, and that even God will judge every man “ accord-
ing to his deeds.” This is true, for it is Scripture. But, doubt-
less, it is the whole of a man’s deeds by which God will judge
him, and we ourselves may find reason to question, in many
particular cases, whether a man’s doing a particular virtuous
deed proves him to be, even at that time, in a soundly virtuous
state.
4. It is true of every unrenewed man that the ruling prin-
ciple of his life is wrong. In the last analysis this ruling
principle has ascendency over the whole man, over all the pow-
ers and susceptibilities of his being, and penetrates with its
pernicious influence his entire character. The tendency of one
in such a condition obviously is to grow worse. The natural
proclivity is to evil. We are held back from this, or lifted out
of it, only by some gracious power coming upon us from with-
out ourselves; coming down upon us from above. The most
amiable of young men, the most lovely of young women, the
sweetest babe that smiles back its mother’s smile, if left forever
to the purely natural development of what is in it by nature,
will (we have scriptural reason to believe) become as bad as
Satan. The leprosy may yet have appeared only in one small,
faint spot ; nay, to human eyes it may yet be quite invisible,
but being in the system, its malign power is equal to the fearful
work of corrupting every member and organ, and reducing the
whole body to a mass of loathsomeness. It possesses the
whole body, and in due time will assert its possession. So does
sin reign over the whole man. So does it possess and corrupt
*Divine Government, p. 360.
1877.]
Total Depravity.
473
man’s entire nature. Gen. vi : 5 ; Prov. xxi : 4 ; Eccl. viii : 2 ;
Rom. vii : 1 8, viii : 7 ; 1 Cor. ii : 14.
We have spoken of the ruling principle of the unregenerate
man’s life being wrong, and vitiating his whole character.
It is not unreasonable to ask us what that wrong ruling prin-
ciple is. It may not be possible to give any simple and brief
answer which is not liable to convey an erroneous impression.
If required to answer in one word, the word shall be selfishness.
We would define this as supreme regard for self. Yet it is not
a regard for one’s own true welfare. It often involves reckless
disregard of this, or mad shutting of the eyes to it, and rushing
on destruction, giving one’s self up to present gratification,
however destructive that gratification may be known to be. It
is doubtful whether there has ever lived a more unselfish man,
save the man Christ Jesus, than he who wrote as the foremost
of his seventy famous resolutions, “ Resolved, that I will do
whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good ,
profit and pleasure, ON THE WHOLE ; without any consideration
of the time, whether now, or never so many millions of ages
hence ; to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the
good and advantage of mankind in general, whatever difficulties
I meet with, how many and how great soever.”* No selfish
man ever had such a wise regard for his own zvelfare, ON the
WHOLE.
Perhaps we should be viewing our subject more advan-
tageously from the opposite direction, viz. : if we should con-
sider the want of any right governing principle in the natural
man. Such a system of powers as the human soul is, working
on evermore without a right governing principle, is as fearful
an example of organized disorder as can be imagined.
We may not all agree in our statements of what should be
the governing principle of the human soul. The difficulty of
agreement, however, will be found with reference to the ulti-
mate ground of obligation, and not in respect to the rule for
man’s practical guidance. That the will of God is right in
every case, none will question, whether they think that right
is constituted by his will, or is determined by his nature, or is
the eternal principle to which his will and his nature eternally
conform, and therefore deserve the supreme regard which he
*Life of Pres. Edwards.
474
Total Depravity.
[July,
claims. In either view of that question, the known will of
God is man’s rule, and God himself ought to be the supreme
object of man’s regard and affection.
Dr. McCosh, and his great instructor, Chalmers, have impres-
sively exhibited the lack of “ Godliness" as the preeminent fea-
ture of universal human depravity. They have shown how rad-
ically defective that virtue must be which concerns itself never so
scrupulously, equitably, or tenderly with the obligations which
exist toward one's fellow-creatures, but is indifferent, or negli-
gent, or obdurate toward God. Are they not right in this ?
Is there not some radical defect in a morality which finds all
its applications earth-ward, and none heaven-ward ; all man-
ward and none God-ward ; which renders its possessor scrupu-
lous in his dealings with men, generous and kind to them, but
content to live in confessed neglect of his obligations to God?
Dr. McCosh affirms these general principles : (i.) “That in
judging of a responsible agent, at any given time, we ought to
take into view the whole state of his mind. (2.) That the
mental state of the agent cannot be truly good, provided he is
in the meantime neglecting a known obligation. ”* He illus-
trates these principles by applying them to several supposed
cases. (1.) “A boy arrived at the age of responsibility, running
away from his parents without provocation of any kind.-’ All
the generous and chivalrous behavior of such a lad among his
fellows cannot put him into a sound and good moral con-
dition while he persists in his truancy. “ All his kindness will
not draw a single smile of complacency from the rightly con-
stituted mind till he return to his father’s house and to his
proper allegiance.”
(2.) A person who has unjustly got possession of a neighbor’s
property, and is then “very benevolent in the use which he makes
of his wealth.” We may instructively extend this illustration to
men who grow rich in public offices, in which they handle the
public revenues, and are then admired by the unthinking for
the liberality of their expenditure, and their gifts to the poor.
The silly sheep bleat their admiration and gratitude for the
corn lavishly fed to them, not careful to reckon with how small
a part of the price of their own fleeces it has been purchased.
Divine Government, pp. 357 —3 5 S
a 8 77-\
Total Depravity.
475
But surely no thoughtful and intelligent citizen approves “ the
whole state of mind” of a man whose liberality is shown in the
use of money which he dishonestly stopped on its way to the
public treasury.
Dr. McCosh adduces several other illustrations, showing very
clearly “ how the moral faculty cannot approve of an agent,
even when doing an act good in itself, provided he is in a bad
moral state, and living, meanwhile, in neglect of a clear and
bounden duty.”
Perhaps those principles may be brought home more impres-
sively to us by an illustration drawn from our national experi-
ence. There were men, a few years ago. in rebellion against
the Government of our country, whose private lives were
unstained by vice, and were adorned with social and domestic
virtues and graces. They were chivalrous in their intercourse
with companions in arms, merciful to prisoners of war, chaste,
temperate, truthful. Were all these private virtues of any ac-
count to the Government so long as they were in arms against
it ? In dealing with them as rebels, could the Government
abate anything of its severity on account of any good deeds
done in rebellion? Doubtless we must feel a less degree of
abhorrence toward such men than toward any who to re-
bellion superadded cruelty to helpless captives, or wanton out-
rages upon loyal households, or indulgence in low and degrad-
ing vices. Yet toward the Government against which they
were in rebellion their character as citizens was utterly lost.
The forfeiture was complete, entire, total.
Now let us recollect that in this earthly relation of citizen-
ship a man’s entire character is not involved. His whole duty
is not included in loyalty to the Government of his country.
But loyalty to God does include all his duty, and does involve
his whole character.* Disloyalty toward the Divine govern-
ment is universal moral failure. Wrong there, at the centre,
a man is wrong throughout. He may not actually do wrong
in every case, but he is totally destitute of any principle
which would insure his acting right in any case where the in-
ducement to wrong is great enough.
These observations show a just sense in which the depravity
of mankind is indeed a total depravity. They fitly illustrate
*Eccl. xii. 13 .
476
Total Depravity.
[Juiy;
the sense in which that affirmation is made by Calvinists. We
are not to be understood as affirming that all mankind are
equally wicked ; nor that any one man is as wicked as he can
be ; nor that there is no difference in moral character between
men and devils. All such statements are uncandid caricatures
of Calvinism, or ignorant exaggerations, or unfortunate misap-
prehensions of it.
Nevertheless, we ought candidly to recognize the liability to-
occasion such misapprehensions by harsh or unguarded state-
ments. In preaching and in writing, we are bound to consider
what impressions our words are likely to make upon our actual
hearers or readers, in their actual circumstances, and with their
actual culture, antecedents and prejudices. It is not enough
to consider only what impressions they are entitled to receive,,
or would receive, if they were all capable of estimating our words
with grammatical and logical precision. We ought to do all in
our power, with the most patient care and painstaking, to en-
sure true impressions, even to ignorant, or weak, or prejudiced!
hearers.
This may depend upon the state of our hearts, even more
than on the accuracy of our thinking, or the rhetorical faultless-
ness of our statements. Are we chiefly desirous of confound-
ing and silencing opponents, or of winning and saving souls —
winning them unto acceptance of the truth, that they may be
saved by its power, begotten through it into sonship to God ?
If we believe in total depravity as a matter of our own expe-
rience, the awful burden of which we share with our hearers ; if
we solemnly, and humbly, and thankfully feel that from such
utter ruin and helplessness Christ has redeemed us, and the
patient love of the Holy Spirit is delivering us, this view and
this feeling will not probably be misunderstood. If we address
our hearers, not with harsh and imperious objurgation, but with-
respectful, sorrowful, tender sympathy — not as if we forgot
that the human nature is our own nature, but confessing that
we, as well as they, need deliverance from its guilt and misery
— if we speak to men thus humbled, awed, burdened, they will
be apt to get our true meaning. The painful but necessary
truth will be apt to reach them, however rhetorically imperfect
our utterance of it may be. They will be apt to feel them-
selves as depraved as we honestly confess ourselves to be.
1877-]
Total Depravity.
477
Neither they nor we will dicker and chaffer about the ad-
jectives with which we shall define our depravity, and tfy to
express our sense of its intensity.
The question may still arise, “ Shall we use the terms total
depravity in describing the actual moral condition of unregen-
erate man ?” We have no categorical answer to this question.
The obligation to do our best to make the truth understood,
to give truthful impressions to the minds actually addressed,
may forbid giving one and the same answer to that question
for all times and places. The use of that phrase would not
make the same impression on all classes of hearers ; it would
not convey the same idea to all classes of minds. We cannot
acquit ourselves of the responsibilities which rest upon us in the
pastoral care of souls in any so summary and easy way as
would be implied by a categorical answer to such a question.
There have been ministers who accounted the frequent af-
firmation of total depravity , in those very terms, necessary to
fidelity in preaching. They could not see any variation from
this usage in any other light than that of an attempt to soothe
and flatter those who need to be humbled and alarmed. The
omission of those terms from any discourse relating to the
natural man’s spiritual condition would make them suspicious
of its orthodoxy. Yet those terms are not found in the West-
minster Confession of Faith, nor in the Shorter Catechism, nor
in the Larger Catechism, nor in the Bible. Doubtless we do
find in the Bible, and in those admirable summaries of its doc-
trines, all which is intended to be expressed by those terms, as
orthodox writers and preachers have used them. This justi-
fies the use of them wherever they are likely best to convey
the truth they are intended to convey, or with such explana-
tion as will guard them against making a false impression, in-
jurious to souls that need faithful and careful leading. But it
does not justify requiring any man to use them on pain of
having his orthodoxy impeached or suspected, if he believes
that he can more successfully convey that truth to the minds
of his hearers by the use of any other terms. Every one of us
has the same liberty, which our brethren of the Westminster
Assembly took, of judging for himself, before God, by what
terms he can most surely and most effectually convey the truth
into the minds for the instruction of which he is responsible.
4/8
[July,
Total Depravity.
The necessity of explaining these terms, which experience
has made apparent — the tendency of almost all explanations
to begin by declaring that the terms do not mean what experi-
ence shows that many persons take them to mean — goes far to
justify any preacher in the endeavor to find other terms to ex-
press the truth which these terms are intended to express,
without the erroneous impression which they have been found
liable to make. If such terms can be found, they are likely to
send the truth home the more convincingly because they can
be uttered by the preacher without any misgiving, and without
explanations which may seem to explain them away.
There is another and opposite class of minds, inclined to re-
pudiate the phrase “ total depravity,” and even to discard it with
some tokens of contempt. To such persons we would say, Be-
ware, lest you make not only an erroneous but a fatal impres-
sion on many persons who are glad to hear your scornful
rejection of a phrase which they have associated with orthodox
teaching, and who desire to escape from the pressure of such
teaching. You also ought carefully to study the laws of im-
pression as well as the laws of language. Beware, lest you
dispel from your hearers’ minds the conviction of that solemn
truth which those terms have been used to express. Beware,
lest you soothe into fatal apathy consciences which need to be
roused. Beware, lest you let yourselves be understood to cry,
“ Peace, peace,” to them to whom God has said, “ There is no
peace.” Nay, beware lest you yourselves fail to see and to
understand the awful, the fathomless depth of guilt and misery
from which you yourselves, as well as those to whom God
sends you, must needs be delivered.
There is not much danger, after all, of men feeling their own
sinfulness to be greater than it really is.
I877-J
The M a lay A rch ipelago.
479
Art. VI.— THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO*
By Rev. J. K. Wight, New Hamburg, N. Y.
RENEWED attention will doubtless be drawn to this book
because of the more recent and elaborate work by the same
distinguished author, the title of which we give in full below, f
and which is an attempt to collect and summarize the existing
information on the distribution of land animals, and to explain
the more remarkable and interesting of the facts, by means of
established laws of physical and organic change ; in other
words, to show the important bearing of researches into the
natural history of every part of the world upon the study of its
past history. The main idea, which is here worked out in such
fulness of detail for the whole earth, was embodied some years
since in a paper on the “ Zoological Geography of the Malay
Archipelago,” which appeared in the Journal of Proceedings of
the Linncan Society for i860; and again in a paper read before
the Royal Geographical Society in 1863. (Preface.)
We shall have occasion to refer again to this more recent
work, which in its department, and for those specially interest-
ed in geology or natural history, must prove an exceedingly
valuable addition to our stores of knowledge. Yet, as better
suited to the general reader, and because of the special interest
attaching to a portion of the globe so little known, and because
of some questions not touched upon in the larger and more
elaborate work, we turn to this former publication of Mr. Wal-
lace, which, though given to the world some years ago, remains
the best authority upon the natural history of those islands,
giving at the same time many pleasant pictures of life and
travel in scenes so unlike our temperate zone and our civilized
habits.
Mr. Wallace dedicates his book on the Malay Archipelago
* The Malay Archipelago : The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Para-
dise. A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature. By Alfred Russell
Wallace. Illustrated, pp. 638. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1869.
f The Geographical Distribution of Animals. With a study of the Relations of
Living and Extinct Fauna, as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth’s Surface.
By Alfred Russell Wallace, author of the “ Malay Archipelago,” etc. In two Vol-
umes. With Maps and Illustrations, pp. 503,607. New York: Harper & Broth-
ers, 1876.
480
The Malay Archipelago.
July,
to Mr. Darwin, and in his more recent work he says that they
were undertaken through his and Prof. Newton’s encourage-
ment, so that though he does not often place himself in direct
antagonism to Scripture statement, he yet pursues a line of in-
vestigation which he doubtless thinks is opposed to traditional
forms of belief. We welcome, however, thorough investigation
in all lines of study, believing, as Dr. Wm. M. Taylor has well
said, that the workers in Revelation and Science, as on each
side of the Mount Cenis Tunnel, will not meet in opposition
but to remove barriers in the inquirer’s way. Light will shine
through what now appears darkness.
There are two points which we assume will be of special in-
terest to the readers of this Review in connection with the
Malay Archipelago. First, the bearing of researches into their
natural history upon revealed truth ; and, secondly, the condi-
tion of man, morally, in those islands, which are so rich in ma-
terial resources.
Doubtless few whose attention has not been especially di-
rected to this region, realize the extent of these islands. The
Archipelgao is 4,000 miles in length from east to west, and
13,000 in breadth from north to south. In Borneo the whole of
the British Isles might be set down and have a margin for one
or two islands of the size of Ireland. New Guinea is still larger,
being 1,400 miles long, and in the widest part 400 broad, or, if
we except Australia, the largest island in the w orld. The
whole amount of land in this Archipelago is supposed to be
about the same as in Western Europe, or Germany, Holland,
France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal. The variety
in size and formation is almost endless, from the small coral
lagoon to the high volcanic summit, with its extinct fires, or as,
in many cases, smoking and heaving at intervals still. Situated
within the tropics, the vegetation on most of these islands is
luxuriant — extending from the water’s edge high up the craggy
sides of its mountains, and including most of the famed woods
and fruits of tropical climes — sandal-wood, bamboo, rattan,
palms of all descriptions, fruits and spices. Borneo is the home
of the orang-utan, which is only equaled by the gorilla, and,
next to that monster of the West-African forests, is the largest
of the monkey tribe. Du Chaillu found gorillas five feet nine
inches in height, while the largest orang is only four feet two
inches high. Monkeys of all kinds, and nearly all of the larger
1 87;.]
The Malay Archipelago.
481
animals, disappear as you go east. But New Guinea and the
adjacent islands can lay claim to being the home of that most
beautiful of all birds — the bird of Paradise.
The products of these islands are so valuable and peculiar
that there is no little reason for supposing that Solomon’s ships
touched at some of them in their three years’ voyage to Ophir.
Gold and diamonds are to be had in Borneo. Apes and ele-
phants’ teeth are there, or on the Malay Peninsula, while the pea-
cocks we fancy were this more rare, and most beautiful bird of
the world.*
Without following Mr. Wallace in detail as he traveled from
island to island, now living in European towns, now in native
huts, now traveling in a steamer, and then in a native prau, we
wish to state some of the results of his researches ; and —
* The word translated peacocks in 1 Kings x: 22 and 2 Chron. ix: 21 is,
— toucayim, which Gesenius fancies to have been the domestic name of the pea-
cock in India, of which country it is a native. A bird very similar to the peacock
of India is found in Java, and it is easily domesticated in almost any country.
That India was not the Ophir or Tarshish of Solomon’s three years’ voyages seems
likely, not merely because it was so near, but also because it was in all probability
reached by an overland trade, of which we have an indication in the building of
Tadmor, 120 miles N.E. of Damascus, and more than half the distance to the Eu-
phrates. While the peacock can be easily domesticated, and thus introduced
without difficulty into neighboring countries, it is almost impossible to tame the
Bird of Paradise or make it live in confinement, and thus transport it to other coun-
tries. Mr. Wallace tried caging several varieties, but though feeding well, and
lively for a day or two, they all died by the third or fourth day. He finally found
a pair alive at Singapore, and purchased them for ^100, and brought them to
England, where they lived for a year or two. It is doubtful whether any light can
be thrown upon the question of the right interpretation of toucayim from the pres-
ent names of these birds. Gesenius says the Sanscrit name for peacock is sikhi.
Mr. Wallace says one variety of the birds of Paradise (for there are eighteen dif-
ferent kinds) is called by the natives ‘‘ goby goby,” and its cry is wawk-wawk-
wawk, wok-wok-wok, which resounds in early morning through the woods. The
nearest resemblance that we know in sound is the Toucan of South America. But
neither the beauty of the bird, nor the direction from Ezion-geber, would point to
South America as the Ophir. Besides beauty of plumage, another idea may pos-
sibly have been the attraction when apes were brought in those ships, and that is
the power of imitation which belongs to the parrot tribe. The distance across
oceans is not such an obstacle as we might suppose. The Asiatics of Solomon’s
time, and a few centuries later, when Babylon was built, and when Lautoz, the
Chinese philosopher, visited Greece, and Brahminism spread to Java, where its
solid brick and stone ruins are now seen among bamboo huts, and Buddhism sent
its missionaries to Ceylon, Siam and Japan, and across the Himalayas to Thibet
and China, were a race whose intellectual activity and enterprise are in striking
contrast with the apathy and sluggishness of their descendants.
482
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
1. As to the distribution of animal life. The impression
with most would be that in islands located as these are, within
the tropics, and in near proximity, and with a flora very similar,
that the fauna should be very much alike. But instead of that,
the variations are distinct and marked. The larger animals, as
the elephant, the rhinoceros, wild cattle, and also monkeys, are
to a great extent the same in Sumatra, Borneo and Java, as in
the Malay Peninsula. But eastward all the larger animals dis-
appear. In New Guinea none are to be found ; and instead are
pigs, bats, opossums and kangaroos. The birds differ as widely
as the animals. Thus, out of three hundred and fifty varieties
of land birds inhabiting Java, not more than ten have passed
eastward into Celebes. Of the one hundred and eight land
birds of New Guinea and adjacent islands, twenty-nine are ex-
clusively characteristic of it. Thirty-five belong to that limited
area which includes the Moluccas and North Australia. One-
half of the New Guinea genera are found also in Australia and
about one-third in India and the Indo-Malay Islands (p. 578).
It is in New Guinea and adjacent islands alone that the differ-
ent varieties of the Paradise bird are found.
According to our author, the different races of men vary al-
most as much as the lower orders of the animal creation. In
the west, or in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Celebes, etc., the islanders
belong to a race allied to the Malay. In the coast regions of
Borneo and Sumatra are what may be called the true Malay
race, who are Mohammedans in religion, speak the Malay, and
use the Arabic character in writing. Besides these Mohamme-
dans there are the savage Dyaks of Borneo, who are not Mo-
hammedans. In Java a similar race exists, though their lan-
guage differs from the Malay. Their religion is, however, Mo-
hammedan. The Malays are smaller than Europeans, their
complexion brown, hair straight and black, and no beard.
The race which is strongly contrasted to this is the Papuan
or New Guinean. Between the two there has, however, been
more or less of mixture, and in many places a commingling of
other races, especially the Chinese, who are found among these
islands as on the Malay Peninsula, wherever there is any open-
ing for trade. The Malays are so nearly allied to the East Asi-
atic population, that in Bali the Chinese who had adopted the
native costume could hardly be distinguished from the Malay.
The typical Papuan, however, is unlike the Matey. The color
1 877*1
The Malay Archipelago.
483
of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, approaching in
color the true negro. The hair is peculiar, being harsh, dry~
and frizzly, and standing up from the head like a mop. The
nose is large, arched and high, the lips thick and protuberant,
and the face covered with beard. In stature they nearly equal
the average European. In character the Papuan is bold, im-
petuous, excitable and noisy. The Malay is bashful, cold, un-
demonstrative and quiet. From this description it will be seen
that the Papuan bears a close resemblance to the negro of Af-
rica, and also to the inhabitants of Polynesia.
We come now to the question, How is this peculiar distribu-
tion of animal life to be accounted for? So fair as man is con-
cerned, he has the means of passing from island to island. But
here are two strongly marked races in close proximity, and
what is the cause of the wide divergence? This question with
respect to man we will take up after looking at the lower order
of animal life.
Two facts are to be considered — one of similarity to the pro-
ductions of the main-land, and the other of divergence. How,
first, are we to account for the similarity, or how did the pro-
ducts of the animal and vegetable kingdoms cross these seas
and straits, and propagate themselves in their island homes ?
Mr. Wallace adopts the theory, first suggested by Mr. Earle in
a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society in 1845,
that these islands, in some former geologic period, were con-
nected with two great continents — Asia on the one hand, and
Australia on the other. And that as evidence of this a shallow
sea, less than forty fathoms deep, now connects them with these
continents, while a sea of over one hundred fathoms in depth
to the eastward of Celebes separates them from one another.
That there have been great geological changes in this region,
and not necessarily at a very remote period, is evident from
the existence of so many extinct and active volcanoes, some of
which are elevated six to eight thousand feet. A correspond-
ing subsidence in the same general region would be expected
after any great elevation of land.
It might be thought that the seeds of plants could be borne
by winds and currents to neighboring islands ; and that birds
and animals could pass from one to the other. While this is
true of the vegetable creation to some extent, and is also true
484
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
of some birds, yet to many land animals and many varieties of
birds, even a narrow channel of the sea forms an impassable
barrier. To illustrate what would be the case, supposing the
causes which are now in existence only to operate, let us take
Celebes, the strange-shaped island near the center of the Archi-
pelago. From its position, separated only by a narrow inter-
vening strait from Borneo, and surounded by other islands, and
with large indentations of the sea, and having comparatively
only a narrow breadth of land, it is admirably fitted to receive
the forms of life which exist in at least the neighboring islands.
But Mr. Wallace says it is the poorest of them all in the number
of its species, and the most isolated in the character of its pro-
ductions (p. 277). Of the land birds there are one hundred and
twenty-eight different species. Of these twenty roam over the
whole Archipelago, leaving one hundred and eight species more
especially characteristic of the island. Of these only nine ex-
tend to the islands westward, and nineteen to the islands east-
ward, while no less than eighty are confined to Celebes. Of
these there are many which have no affinity with birds on the
nearer islands, but bear a close resemblance to those in such
distant regions as New Guinea, Australia, India or Africa.
The peculiar isolation of the fauna of this island Mr. Wallace
is disposed to account for by supposing that it is older land, or
was elevated above the surrounding ocean before the other
islands.
Whether this theory of subsidence of sea and elevation of
land, will answer all the necessities of the case, seems doubtful.
It might, if the types of animal and vegetable life were in all
respects similar to the mainland ; but as they differ so radically
in many particulars, there is the necessity of accounting for the
isolated and peculiar forms of life.
In glancing at the questions here involved, we cannot adopt
the statements and conclusions of our author. As, for instance,
Mr. Wallace says : “ Naturalists have now arrived at the con-
clusion that by some slow process of development or transmu-
tation, all animals have been produced from those which pre-
ceded them ; and the old notion that every species was specially
created as they now exist, at a particular time, and in a par-
ticular spot, is abandoned as opposed to many striking facts,
and unsupported by any evidence.”*
* Geographical Distribution of Animals, Vol. I., p. 6
i877-]
The Malay Archipelago.
485
This modification of animal life, he acknowledges, has taken
place very slowly, so that the historic period of three or four
thousand years has hardly produced a perceptible change in a
single species. Even to the last glacial epoch, 50,000 or
100,000 years, modification has taken place only in a “ few of
the higher animals into very slightly different species.”" It
will be seen that this theory takes for granted what even Mr.
Wallace admits has never taken place in historic times, a single
clear instance of transmutation of species. 2. If there has
been transmutation, it does not do away with the necessity of
creation. Modification, development, evolution, from lower to
higher forms, which all recognize, is not creation or calling
things that are out of those that are not.* 3. All the facts ad-
duced by Mr. Wallace point to an entirely different conclusion
than that of transmutation. No one has demonstrated better
than he that the habitat of very many animals is exceedingly
limited. There are a few that are somewhat cosmopolitan,
but every continent, and almost every island, especially in this
Malay Archipelago, has its distinct fauna. Even those conti-
nents which are connected, as Europe, Asia and Africa, have,
in different parts, their own special forms of animal life. These
differences are more marked when wide seas intervene. In
Australia there are no elephants or tigers, no apes or monkeys,
no deer or oxen, none of the familiar types of quadrupeds ex-
isting in other parts of the globe, but kangaroos and opossums.
So, also, its birds differ from those of other regions.
The present distribution of animal life, therefore, would in-
dicate not a transmutation of species from one common cen-
tre or origin, but a creation of many species in their particular
locality. The distinction between man and the other animals
in this respect is quite plain in the record. According to the
Bible, all mankind were descended from one pair, and were
spread abroad over the face of the whole earth. But with
both animals and vegetables, the method was different. The
waters, not in one place, but everywhere and in all directions,
were to bring forth moving creatures, and the earth living
creatures. For the locality, for the food provided, for all the
circumstances in which the creature was to be placed, the crea-
* Geographical Distribution ot Animals, Vol. I., p. 7
(New Series, No. 22.)
31
486
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
ture made was adapted — opossums and kangaroos in Australia,
elephants, tigers, and the domestic animals on the larger con-
tinents, and beautiful and strange birds on nearly every island
of the sea.
But the objection will readily occur, If this distribution of
animals agrees with the Mosaic account of creation, how about
the deluge? Were all the animals gathered into the ark, and
if so, whence the wide difference of species from those at pres-
ent existing in Asia, and how did the animals cross barriers which
they are never known to cross now? Transmutation of species,
if we believed in it, would be a convenient theory to help us
out of this difficulty, or the subsidence and elevation of conti-
nents, or the survival of the fittest. We must concede that in
the present state of our knowledge it is not easy to reconcile
the geographical distribution of animals with the theory of a
universal deluge. Theologians must look at all the difficulties
of the case, and in due time the solution will come. Hugh
Miller thought he had found a solution in a limited deluge,
brought about in part by the subsidence of the earth in that
locality where man existed, and which by its depression would
bring in the fountains of the great deep. Another solution
which Prichard advocates, is the recreation on those distant
lands and islands of forms of life that had previously existed.
But it might be asked, (i) why not recreate all the forms of
life, and not attempt to preserve some of them in the ark ?
And (2), the account of creation seems to imply that when God
finished it, he rested not to take it up again. With man, the
last and highest type, the work was complete, and its com-
pletion was emphasized by the Sabbath or period of rest.
When man sinned, God did not destroy them all and recreate
a new human race, but preserved one family. And so with
the animals. There is no record of recreation. Is the only
conclusion, then, that the deluge was limited? To this we
must say, that from the side of natural history there are facts
on both sides which render the question, for the present at
least, not easy of solution. On the one hand there are all the
physical difficulties of collecting birds, insects and animals over
seas which they never cross, and supplying this vast concourse
with appropriate food. And on the other, we find this equally
remarkable fact, which Mr. Wallace emphasizes, “ of the recent
1877-]
The Malay Archipelago.
487
and almost universal change that has taken place in the char-
acter of the fauna over the entire globe.* In Europe, in
North America, and in South America, we have evidence that
a very similar change occurred about the same time.” The re-
mains of mastodons, huge armadillos, large horses and tapirs,
cave-lions, etc., are found in peat-bogs, gravels and cave-earths,
and since the deposition of the most recent of the fossil-bearing
strata, we can certify to the correctness of this, so far as the
mastodons of this country are concerned. Again, in Australia
there is a similar appearance of extinct fauna, some of gigantic
size, belonging to the same geologic period — kangaroos as
large as an elephant. f His theory of accounting for this simul-
taneous change over large portions of the earth’s surface, is the
great change wrought at the time of the glacial epoch, some
50,000 or 100,000 years ago. “We live,” he says, “ in a zoolog-
ically impoverished world, from which all the largest and fair-
est and strongest forms have recently disappeared, and it is no
doubt a much better world for us now they have gone.”;}; How,
then, are remains found in the very last of the tertiary deposits
in the pliocene and post-pliocene periods ? Mr. Wallace would
say, We are to weigh the evidence whether this recent dis-
appearance of strange fauna is not more likely to have been
caused by the deluge than by the glacial epoch. The fact that
it was the deluge is strengthened in our minds by the remains
of human bones found in the same cave-earths with those of
the ancient fossils of the Old World, though this is not men-
tioned by our author, as he leaves man out of his geographical
distribution of animals. We would not be too positive in our
assertions, where as yet the data have not been perhaps suffi-
ciently examined, but the acknowledged change requires a re-
cent cause, and this recent and sufficient cause seems to be met
by the deluge. Mr. Wallace is justly severe on “ those who
would create a continent to account for the migrations of a
beetle;” so we question the propriety of dodging an adequate
cause of three or four thousand years ago, for a questionable
solution of 50,000 or 1 00,000 years previous. To those who
look for a wise and kind Providence, even in the midst of
judgment, we have it in the sweeping away of so many fierce
* Distribution of Animals, vol. i., p. 149., et seq.
| Ibid., p. 157. % Vol. I, p. 150.
488
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
and strange animals, which made the world after the flood a
better habitation for man. As we said, however, we put this
fact of the recent disappearance of strange and huge fauna,
which favors the belief in a universal deluge, over against the
other of the isolated distribution of different forms of animal
life, which seems to make it impossible ; and wait for further
investigation and research to tunnel through this difficulty.
We pass now to the question about the two races, so dissimi-
lar, which occupy different portions of this Archipelago. Our
author considers them so entirely different, that they belong
to two distinct races, rather than modifications of one and the
same race.* To this we may assent so far as they present dis-
tinct peculiarities, and show an origin which for centuries has
been separate, but not if he means, as we suppose he does, that
they did not descend from one common pair. If man was only
an animal, there would have been a chance for transmutation
of species ; but as he is man, he must forsooth have come from
another race. However, we accept the fact of difference in
many peculiarities. The Papuan or New Guinean resembles
first the Polynesian ; and second, has certain clearly marked af-
finities which connect him with the negro of Africa, rather
than with any of the nations of Asia. Supposing the ances-
tors of the Papuan to have come from Africa rather than Asia,
the difficult question is, how did they get across the Indian
Ocean to Polynesia? It seems a big distance to pass by sea
for any methods of navigation now known to these races. Possi-
bly there has been a decadence in knowledge, as exhibited by
the native races on our own continent and in other parts of
the world, when the descendants of former generations could
not rebuild the cities and temples among the ruins of which
they dwell. Europeans and Americans are always thinking of
the progress of the race ; Asiatics of its decadence. When we
find the savage, we hope our idea is true of his future, that of
the Asiatic may be correct of his past history, rather than that
he has always stood in the same position. Mr. Wallace him-
self states that in Java there are ruins of elaborate and well
constructed temples, where solid mason-work has in a measure
resisted the ravages of time in a tropical climate, which are
Malay Archipelago , p. 532.
1877-]
The Malay Archipelago.
489
surrounded by bamboo huts — the highest style of architecture
of the descendants of these old temple builders. It may be
that, as nations, which in Solomon’s time could make long voy-
ages, and the descendants of which could not make them now,
so the Africans may have had the enterprise then to leave
their native shores and find homes in Polynesia.
Still another conjecture is open without being obliged to re-
sort to any such theory as that Polynesia and Africa have been
peopled by more than one race. There are some animals allied
to apes, which go on all fours, called lemurs, which are com-
mon to some of these islands, and also to Madagascar. The
baribossa of Celebes and Bouru resembles the wart-hog of
Africa, and there are other striking resemblances in birds. Dr.
Sclater has suggested that a continent even existed in the
Indian Ocean which formed a link between Africa and Poly-
nesia, and has given to this hypothetical land the name of
Lemuria, from the animal which first suggested the connection
of those now widely separated regions (p. 290).
This subsidence of continents is a convenient escape from
many difficulties. And of the fact in the general there is no
doubt, just as there are rocks all about us which have been
elevated from their ocean beds ; but yet subsidence may be
assumed in directions where it never existed, and may be placed
at periods which cannot be definitely determined by any indi-
cations which we now have. Mr. Wallace, rightly we think,
hopes for light in the study of extinct fauna and flora in con-
nection with living types ; but there is need of great caution
in the way of inferences. In his later work he seems to think
the line of connection between continents has been north and
south, rather than east and west, and so is inclined to give up
the hypothetical continent of Lemuria.
Leaving these questions of physical and scientific interest,
let us look briefly at the present condition of these Islanders,
and see what has been done toward their moral and spiritual
elevation.
The Papuans are heathen, and have been left more undis-
turbed in their heathenism than any other large island on the
face of the globe. Until recently, though long the resort of
traders, and constantly passed by vessels going to Australia, and
frequently by those going to China, yet the only attempts at
490
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
evangelization, so far as we know, are those to which we will
presently refer. The inhabitants of this island have had a
character for violence to which they do not seem entitled.
They are fierce looking, and cut up into hostile tribes; but Mr.
Wallace lived among them without difficulty. They are noisy,
boisterous, but no worse than other savages, and assimilating
in many respects to the natives of Madagascar ; there may be
as great triumphs of the Gospel in store for them as have
been shown on that island. Under a tropical sun they have
but few wants, and those easily supplied. They have but little
occasion to resort even to agriculture. A sago palm cut down,
and the whole inside of the tree washed and dried and made
into cakes, will produce something like 600 pounds of sago, or
enough to last a year, and requiring only about ten days’ labor
of one man, or more usualty woman, to get it ready (p. 385).
The easier the means of subsistence and the plenty which
might be had, results, in the savage state, in the greatest
poverty and scarcity. Where the sago tree abounds the Pa-
puans live almost entirely on that, and a little fish, raising
scarcely any vegetables or fruit. In one of his excursions Mr.
Wallace lived for a time on the Aru Islands, a little south of
New Guinea, and acknowledges that the monotony and uni-
formity of every-day savage life revealed a more miserable kind
of existence than when it had the charm of novelty. Their
food, when they had no fish, was mostly vegetable, imperfectly
cooked, and these in varying and often insufficient quantities.
To this did he attribute the prevalence of skin diseases, and
ulcers on the legs and joints.
“ The chief luxury of these Aru people is arrack (Java rum), which the
traders bring in great quantities and sell cheap. A day’s fishing or rattan
cutting will purchase at least a half gallon bottle , and when the trepang or
birds’ nests collected during a season are sold, they get whole boxes contain-
ing fifteen such bottles, which the inmates of a house will sit round day and
night till they have finished. They themselves tell me that at such bouts
they often tear to pieces the houses they are in, break and destroy every-
thing they can lay their hands on, and make such a riot as is alarming to be-
hold ” (p. 453).
He says they seem to enjoy pure idleness, often sitting for
days in their houses, their women bringing the vegetables or
sago which form their food.
On these islands there were three or four villages on the
1 877-]
The Malay Archipelago.
49 1
coast where schoolmasters from Amboyna reside, and the people
were nominally Christian, and to some extent educated and
civilized. Their intercourse with Mohammedan traders had
also some effect, as they would often bury their dead, though
their national custom was to expose the body on a raised stage
until it decomposed.
On New Guinea itself there was no Dutch colony at the
time of Mr. Wallace’s visit, though explorations were going on
for the purpose of planting one. Trading vessels pass along
the coast, and at the fine harbor of Dorey, which was the only
point where Mr. Wallace made any tarry, he found two Ger-
man missionaries. At that time they were the only ones on
the island ; one of them had been there for two years and had
learned something of the language, and was attempting to
translate portions of the Bible, and had also started a small
school. These missionaries were accustomed to labor and
trade, and were obliged to eke out the small salary granted
from Europe by trading with the natives — buying their rice
when it was cheap, and selling it back when they were in need,
at an advanced price. The effect of this on the natives was
the impression that the missionaries, like other traders, came
among them for their own personal advantage, and not for the
good of those among whom they labored.
From a recent work* we learn that these two German mis-
sionaries are dead, and that their places have not been sup-
plied. “The London Missionary Society” directed Mr.
Murray to commence a mission on New Guinea. This he did
in 1871, on the southeastern extremity of the island, opposite
to Australia, landing some native missionaries from the Loy-
alty Islands at two different points. One party of these was
murdered by the natives ; what was the reason for the act Mr.
Murray could not discover. He testifies, however, that he
found no difficulty in going among them unarmed at all points
where he landed. At the other point the mission was suc-
cessfully established, and to the native missionaries was added
a missionary from England.
The islands to the westward, where the Malay race predomi-
*Forty Years’ Missionary Work in Polynesia and New Guinea, 1835 to 1875,
published by the Carters.
492
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
nates, have been brought more under the influence of civiliza-
tion than those to the east. Amboyna, Java, and some other
points have been visited, and occupied for the purposes of
trade for three hundred years. On the large island of Aram,
near Amboyna, there are schools and native school-masters,
and many of the inhabitants are nominal Christians. In the
larger villages are European missionaries. Mr. Wallace’s esti-
mate of the so-called Christians on this island was not very
favorable. He says they were spoken of as thieves, liars,
drunkards and incorrigibly lazy (p. 357). One cause of this,
he thinks, is that with Mohammedanism, temperance is a part
of their religion, and has become such a habit that practically
the rule is never transgressed. One fertile source of want and
crime is thus present to one class which is not to another.*
Doubtless, in coming out of one system, which is made up of
ceremonies and particular observances and with greater free-
dom from restraint, and yet imperfectly comprehending the
doctrines of Christianity, and imperfectly brought under its
morality, there is some cause for this statement. Christianity,
with a race naturally indolent and in a low state of civiliza-
tion, has a struggle which it is not to be expected will trans-
form at once such a people into the high standard toward
which civilized nations have been struggling for hundreds of
years.
Partly as an offset to the above unfavorable view, and also
as giving more fully the Dutch method of colonization and
Christianization, we will abridge his favorable report of the
change wrought within fifty years on the northeast extremity
of Celebes. Before 1822 this was a savage community, cut up
into small, isolated tribes and villages, with houses built on
lofty posts to defend themselves from their enemies. Strips of
bark were their only dress ; and human skulls were the chief
ornaments of the houses of their chiefs. The country was a
pathless wilderness, with small, cultivated patches of rice and
vegetables. In the year 1822 the coffee plant was introduced
‘Notwithstanding what he says here about the temperance principles of Mo-
hammedanism, we find that on another island he was asked by Mohammedans
for spirits, “the people,” he says, “being merely nominal Mohammedans, who
confine their religion almost entirely to a disgust at pork and a few other forbidden
articles of food.”
1877-]
The Malay Archipelago.
493
into this region, and it was found to be admirably adapted to
its cultivation. The country rises quite rapidly from the sea
into a high, volcanic region with a rich soil. Arrangements
were made with the village chiefs, who were to receive a certain
per cent, of the produce. The country was divided into dis-
tricts, and a “ controlleur” appointed, who was the general
superintendent of the cultivation of the district. He was
obliged to visit every village in succession once a month, and
send in a report of their condition to the resident. Under the
direction of the Dutch, roads were made, houses built, mission-
aries were settled in the more populous districts, and schools
were opened. Mr. Wallace describes one of the villages in
this region through which he passed. The main road, he says,
along which the coffee is brought from the interior in carts
drawn by buffaloes, is turned aside at the entrance of the
village and passes behind it, and so allows the village street
to be kept neat and clean. In this village the street was
bordered by a neat hedge formed of rose trees, which were
perpetually in bloom. There was a broad central path kept
clean, and a border of fine turf, which was neatly cut. The
houses were all of wood, raised on posts about six feet from
the ground, with a broad veranda and balustrade, and the walls
neatly whitewashed and surrounded by orange trees and flow-
ering shrubs. He stopped with a native chief, now a major
under the Dutch. His house was large, airy, substantially
built, and furnished in European style, with chairs, tables and
lamps. Meals were served on good china, while his host sat
at the head of the table, dressed in black, with patent leather
shoes. This man’s father was one of those whose dress was
a strip of bark, and whose house was ornamented with human
heads. In this village there was a school-house, its teacher a
native, who had been educated by the missionary at one of
the larger places. School was held every morning for about
three hours, and twice a week there was catechising and
preaching. There was also a service Sunday morning. The
language used was the Malay.
Near the villages were the coffee plantations. The trees are
planted in rows, and kept topped to about seven feet high.
Each tree produced from io to 20 pounds of cleaned coffee an
nually. The plantations are formed by Government, and cul-
494
The Malay Archipelago.
[July,
tivated by the villagers under the direction of the chief. Cer-
tain days are appointed for rveeding and gathering, and the
whole working population are summoned by the sound of a
gong. An account is kept of the day’s work of each family,
and the produce is divided accordingly. The price is fixed by
Government. This system has been called a “ paternal despot-
ism,” and has features which seem strict, and wanting in that
freedom which we imagine is essential. But for a people just
emerging from a savage state, it has its advantages. The peo-
ple were well cared for, better fed, housed, educated, and
apparently making more progress than in any other place in
the Archipelago. There seems to have been a combination of
causes — the natives falling in with the system, and the officers
of Government and the missionaries doing their work well —
which made this place one of the most favorable examples of
the Dutch system. It is worth studying in seeking to provide
a system which shall reach the wants and elevate the condition
of savage races.
These islands — even those forming the west portion of the
Archipelago — though largely occupied by the Dutch, are not
all held by them. Part of Borneo was for a time governed by
an Englishman, Sir James Brooke. Other portions are held
by native chiefs. There are also Dutch settlements on the
island. Sumatra, until within a few years, was governed al-
most entirely by native chiefs. Some European government
would be favorable to missionary work, but it undoubtedly
might be pushed into regions not yet occupied by the Dutch
Government, or by German missionaries. Without attempt-
ing at all to interfere with their work, some contact with other
methods of evangelization would, we are assured, lead to
healthier results.
Because two men were killed on Sumatra years ago, and be-
cause the mission among the Dyaks of Borneo was attended
with difficulty and little success, or even because China offers
a larger field for missionary labor, we see no reason why islands,
some of which are the largest in the world, and which are
capable of sustaining a dense population, and which produce
almost spontaneously every variety of tropical fruit and vege-
tation, should be left without any effort to evangelize them
except by the missionaries from Holland, or the few who may
3877-]
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495
go from Germany. The Chinese are there with opium, and
the Dutch, Portuguese, English and Malay with rum, seeking
spices, beautiful birds, gold dust, diamonds. Why not hasten
with the glad tidings, and elevate regions where savages roam,
and where the wilderness is tangled, and seek to make it the
garden of the Lord ?
Art. VII.— A JEWISH PRAYER BOOK.
By Rev. D. W. Fisher, D.D., Wheeling, West Virginia.
td n r6y — Book of Prayers for Israelitish Congregations.*
The Hebrew words ( Olath Tamid) which constitute the title
of this volume, are those with which the sixth verse of the
twenty-eighth chapter of Numbers begins. They are trans-
lated, both by the compiler and in our English Bible, a contin-
ual burnt-offering. As they stand in the Scriptures, they re-
late to the daily sacrifice which was required by the Mosaic
ritual. The lamb which was offered every morning and even-
ing, together with a tenth part of an ephah of flour, and a
fourth part of a hira of beaten oil, was to be “ a continual
burnt-offering, which was ordained in Mount Sinai for a sweet
savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the Lord.” This whole
verse is placed in both Hebrew and English on the title-page
of this volume. The appropriation of these words, and es-
pecially the care which is taken to let it be known that they
are a part of this verse in the Pentateuch, are significant of
the wide departure of the phase of modern Judaism, repre-
sented in this book, from that type which formerly prevailed
almost universally among the Israelitish people. They are
here applied, not to the daily sacrifices of the tabernacle and
the temple at Jerusalem, but to a ritual in which such offerings
are assumed to be things which are gone forever, and which
there should be no desire to restore.
This is a book which is well worth the study of Christians.
It is true that there are some purposes for which it would be
vain to search it. It does not, like the Targums, throw any
* Prepared by Dr. D. Einhorn.
496
A Jewish Prayer Book.
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light upon the sense in which the Jews ages ago interpreted
the Old Testament. Scripture, for the most part, is quoted
literally. Paraphrase is not formally attempted ; and when
incidentally introduced, it has no special value. There are here
no stores of quaint Rabbinical learning, such as the lamented
Deutsch delighted to exhume from the Talmud. The He-
brew of this volume is no help to the student of that language,
for it is either literally quoted from the Scriptures, or it is
carefully modeled after the pattern of the sacred writers. He-
brew, as a language, died long before Christ was born. Subse-
quently it was carefully embalmed by means of the vowel points
and the accents. No mummy ever has been more completely
preserved in the condition in which it was left when the process
of preparing it for burial was concluded. And it would be
about as reasonable to expect the mummy to awake and perform
the functions of life as to look now for any manifestation of
. present vitality on the part of the Hebrew language. The use
which is here made of it is no more a natural, living outgrowth,
than are the exercises which the student writes in Latin or
Greek composition the spontaneous product of the classic
tongues. The Hebrew of this book, so far as it is not quota-
tion from the Scriptures, though it may be free enough from
grammatical fault, is no better than an imitation of a petrifac-
tion, and throws no light on the difficult problems pertaining
to that tongue.
But for other reasons we have been interested and profited
by the perusal of the Olath Tamid. It joins itself to the re-
mote past, and both conducts our thoughts in that direction,
and, at the same time, casts light upon the pathway. Hence,
provision is made for the religious commemoration of such
events as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, deliv-
erance by the Maccabees in the time of Antiochus, and the
overthrow of Haman in the days of Esther and Mordecai. We
are here conducted still further back, beyond the era of Saky-
amuni, the founder of Buddhism ; beyond the era of Zoroaster
and the fire-worshipers ; beyond the probable era of the old-
est of the sacred books of the Hindus, to the exodus of Israel,
under Moses, fifteen hundred years previous to the birth of
Christ. Provision is made for the celebration of the Passover
which was originally kept at that remote date. True, the cer-
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A Jewish Prayer Book.
497
emonies are not the same which were of old employed, but the
change is explicitly declared to be made because of a change
in the circumstances and relations of Israel. The real exist-
ence of the ancient rites is freely conceded, and the fact of the
Exodus is received without question as the reason of the
modern observance. Here, then, is a ceremony which dates
back its origin nearly thirty-four centuries. It is the latest
link in a historical chain which is fastened, as to its other end,
in Egypt in that remote period. Through this long interval,
the Passover has been, with slight intermissions, constantly
observed. And it is, as at present kept among the Jews, a
monument to the reality of the event which it commemorates,
just as the Lord’s Supper among Christians, having been cele-
brated ever since the death of Christ, is a witness to the real-
ity of the event which it commemorates. In the nature of the
case there is no probability that either of them would or could
have been invented and successfully imposed upon the people
without a real historical origin, for they both point distinctly
to truths which are not welcome to human self-esteem — to
bondage on the part of Israel, and to the need of redemption
on the part of Christians. And there is no time which can be
fixed when such an imposition could first have been success-
fully introduced among Jews or Christians, even if, in the na-
ture of the case, there was no insuperable obstacle. We can
account for the existence of the Lord’s Supper only by the
reality of Christ’s death, and of the Passover only by the real-
ity of the Exodus under Moses.
But it is not for this historical aspect in which this book of
prayers may be viewed that it is most worthy of the study of
Christians. It is chiefly to be valued on account of the light
which it throws upon the religious doctrines and practices of
a part of the Jewish people of the present day. Everything
which concerns the spiritual condition of the scattered rem-
nants of Jacob’s descendants ought profoundly to interest us.
And we believe that, as a rule, intelligent Christians both de-
sire to know their views and are anxious for their welfare. To
them the Jew is not an object to be despised or hated. We
cannot forget the past of this peculiar people. It has not
merely been more romantic, more tragic, more wonderful, than
that of any other branch of the human family, or even than
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A Jewish Prayer Book.
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that which fiction could invent when taxing the imagination to-
the utmost. Over and above this, we remember that they were
the chosen of God for ages. To them we are indebted for the
perpetuation of the church, the writing and preservation of the
Old Testament, and the maintenance of true religion when it
everywhere else was extinct. Of them Christ was born, and
from them the apostles were called. And they still have a
great future before them. Of this, the fact that amid all
their wanderings and persecutions they have been preserved,
so that their distinct existence as a people, though without a
country or national organization, is everywhere maintained, is
a convincing, presumptive indication. And the testimony of
the New Testament is absolutely conclusive on this point. It
does not foretell their restoration to Palestine, or the re-erec-
tion of their nationality, but it does assure us that into the
Christian commonwealth the whole of the remnant of ancient
Israel will be brought. And this will be inseparably associated
with the coming of the fullness of the Gentiles. The latter
event will be the signal for and harbinger of the former. Mil-
lennial glory will be inaugurated by the conversion of this won-
derful people.
This volume is a ritual for divine worship, public, social and
domestic. It is safe to assume, therefore, that in it we have
an expression of the very heart of the religion of the part of
the Jewish people who use it. For those who prepare a ritual
of worship would not be likely to put into it anything which
they do not regard as belonging to the vitals of piety. And
its effect upon those who use it is to conform them to the type
of religion which it embodies. It is true that this volume
does not profess to come with the weight of any ecclesiastical
authority. It does not assume to bind the conscience. But
for the very reason that it is voluntarily received by the peo-
ple, it is all the more to be regarded as an expression of the
genuine religious sentiments of those who employ it.
The Jews of the present day are divided as to their religious
doctrines and practices into three great general classes. One
class is known as the stationary , or extreme orthodox. They
are mainly found in Poland, Russia, Palestine, and in some
other Asiatic and African countries. They have a profound
reverence for the Talmud, and for the forms which the ecclesi-
1877-]
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499
astical authorities prescribe for them. They still look to Pal-
estine as their country, and covet to be buried within its lim-
its. Even a handful of earth brought from that land to be
scattered in the grave, is regarded as a most precious treasure.
They long for the restoration of Jewish nationality, and com-
pare their present state to that of their forefathers, when they
sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept. One article of
their creed, as compiled by Moses Maimonides, in the eleventh,
century, is: “I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Messiah
is yet to come; and although he retard his coming, yet I will
wait for him till he come.” They expect that the Messiah
will bestow the sceptre of universal dominion on the house of
Judah.
The other two classes both owe their origin to the influence
more immediately of Moses Mendelsshon, who lived in the
last century, but more remotely to Moses Maimonides. Both
have largely thrown off the narrow notions of the extreme or-
thodox. But they have separated into two schools. One is
known as the conservative , or moderate orthodox. It prevails
especially in the countries of Western Europe. This school,
while characterized by emancipation from Talmudic and Rab-
binical authority, yet shows a tendency to subordination tcx
a regularly constituted ecclesiastical head, such as chief Rabbi
in each country. They have an intense love for their ancient
land and forms of religion. But they do not look for a return
of the Jews to Palestine, or for the restoration of their nation-
ality in any sense which is incompatible with citizenship of the
world. The degree of rigidness with which such religious du-
ties as are prescribed are enforced, varies in different coun-
tries.
The other of these Jewish schools is variously known as the
reformed , liberal , progressive , or modern. It prevails most ex-
tensively in Germany, Austria, and the United States. Dr.
Einhorn, who prepared the Olath Tamid, and who was for-
merly of Germany, but is now of the United States, is of this
way of thinking, although in his radicalism he is scarcely in
the front of his party at the present time. . Most of the Israel-
itish congregations in this country are of this school. So wide
has been the demand for this book, that several successive
editions have been published. Let us now proceed to a more
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minute examination of the religious doctrines which it embod-
ies. We will thus be able to learn what are some of the
most prominent peculiarities of the type of Judaism which it
represents.
Of these the most notable relate to the peculiar office and
work ascribed to the Jewish people. First, the doctrine of the
Messiah. The idea of a personal Christ is renounced. At the
same time a doctrine of the Messiah is taught in the most un-
equivocal manner. What is to be understood by that name is
not treated as an open question. The Jewish people are
THE MESSIAH. The expression, “ Israel, thy Messiah, ” is one
of the most common in the book. One of the questions to be
asked of the candidate at confirmation is, whether he believes
that Israel is destined to fulfill this high mission as the Mes-
siah of all mankind. It is the race at large to which this
name is given. And as a part of this doctrine, a uni-
versal priesthood is ascribed to this people. The sacerdotal
office is assumed to have passed from the one family, on which
it was conferred by the law of Moses, over to the whole nation.
In the afternoon service for the Day of Atonement the reader
is to say — “The priestly dignity has not vanished from our
midst, but it has passed from the house of Aaron to the whole
community.” And again, as a priest, Israel is represented as
performing a double work. One part of it is to suffer. His
sufferings are not understood to be a real satisfaction to the
offended law and justice of God ; but in his work as a world-
redeeming people, suffering is a consequence, and so becomes a
necessity to the removal of human guilt. We quote again
from the afternoon service for the Day of Atonement : “Not as
a penitent sinner, but as a suffering Messiah, Israel had to go
forth into the world — abandoning his ancient home, with
its temple, its sacrifices, and its priest-pageants, with all its typ-
ical and preparatory institutions, jin order to found every-
where seats of the true worship, and by self-sacrificing devo-
tion to lead the nations to atonement. At once priest and tool
of atonement, he was sent, like the sacrificial goat of old, into
the wilderness, to take the guilt of mankind upon his shoulders,
and carry it off.* The other part of his priestly work is to be a
* The Italics are from the book.
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A Jewish Prayer Book.
501
spiritual teacher and guide for the nations of the earth. At
Confirmation, the candidate is to be asked whether he believes
“ that God has chosen Israel to be his priest-people, to propa-
gate by his character, his wonderful fate, and his unwearied
struggle, the doctrine of sanctification all over the earth, and
unite all men in the true knowledge and worship of God.”
Second , The redemption of the world. This doctrine is in-
separably associated with the other which has just been con-
sidered. By virtue of the Messiahship of the Jewish people and
of their priestly office, all the nations of the earth are to be
brought to the knowledge and practice of the truth, as it is
committed to the charge of Israel, and thus the brotherhood
of all men is to be re-established. They are taught here, in
the prayers, to speak of themselves as “ a world-redeeming
race.” A proselyte, at his reception in the synagogue, is re-
quired to profess his belief that “ God has chosen Israel to be his
priest-people, and ordained him to propagate the doctrine of
the Only-One, and of his holy will among all the inhabitants
of the earth ; that through the mediation of Israel, the true
knowledge and worship of God will one day become the
common good of mankind ; and that the time of such brotherly
union of all nations in God will be the true kingdom of the
Messiah.”
It must be conceded that these two doctrines relating to the
peculiar office and work of the Jewish people are calculated to
arrest attention. In Judaism the reception of them as a part
of a creed constitutes a new departure. For ages it was uni-
versal among Jews to believe in a personal Messiah. At-
tempts in the past were made to fix the time of His appear-
ance, until, on account of repeated disappointments, the Rab-
binical edict was issued, “ Cursed is he who calculates the
time of the Messiah’s coming.” Some still look for a personal
Christ to appear. Others leave it an open question whether
the Messiah is a person, a time, or an event. But those who
hold with this book, turn their backs alike upon the traditions
of the past and the uncertainties of the present, and say that
the Jews themselves are the Messiah. The departure which is
thus taken, also has the merit of boldness. It is a daring thing
for a party, claiming to be liberal beyond others, to assert for
their race an office and work which renders their place among
(New Series , No. 22.)
32
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the nations as unique in the present and future as it ever was,
according to the most conservative, in the past. And if the
scrutiny is not too close, these doctrines may seem to satisfy
some existing facts, and some Scriptural testimonies. They
may appear to explain why, ever since the destruction of
Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, that people, al-
though so widely scattered, and exposed to so many persecu-
tions, has been so wonderfully preserved and kept distinct.
There are Messianic prophecies also which might be forced
into a semblance of harmony with these ideas, although they'
cannot be said positively to teach them. For example: “Judah,
thou art he whom thy brothers praise. . . . The sceptre
shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his
feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be.” — (Gen. xlix : 8, io.)
But a little more careful scrutiny of facts and Scripture
shows these doctrines to be without a solid foundation. Space
will not here permit the full statement of the arguments
against them. Nor is this necessary, for the most part, for
those who shall read this article. But it is to be remarked that
existing facts do not point to the Messiahship of the Jewish
people. They are not leading the nations to God. Proselyt-
ism to Judaism is a rare occurrence anywhere. And outside
of the pale of Judaism, so far as progress is making by the
nations toward a higher religious condition, it is mainly
through the instrumentality of Christians. If we turn from
existing facts to the Scriptures, we notice that in all the thirty-
nine times in which the Hebrew word ( Mashiach ) oc-
curs in the Old Testament, it is not once applied distinctly to
the Jewish people. And the same is true in regard to the
other titles of the Messiah which are there employed. This
of itself is presumptive evidence against such an application
as that which this book makes of the name. The Scriptures
also plainly point to a person as the Messiah. The circle
within which he is to appear, according to the first promise, is
wide as the race. But in all the subsequent predictions there
is a gradual limitation, until eventually the circle is narrower
even than a tribe in Israel. The house of David is to have the
honor of his lineage. It must be a person, therefore, that is
meant. Indeed, he is so designated by the use of pronouns,.
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503
just as unequivocally as it is possible. It is worthy of note,
too, that this doctrine of the Messiah leaves the ritual of the
Levitical law without any adequate meaning. The sacrifices
and the washings then were not clearly the types of better
things to come. And what becomes of the reign of the
Messiah, which is so abundantly foretold ? The idea held out
is that the time of “ brotherly union of all nations in God will
be the true kingdom of the Messiah.” But if the Jewish peo-
ple are the Messiah, this is not his reign. All nations will
have an equal part in it.
The truth is that it is manifest that this whole doctrine of
the Messiah is a theory to which an exigency has driven its
propagators. It is not here meant that they are not honest
in its adoption. We concede the fullest measure of sincerity.
But the swelling floods of modern progress have borne this Jew-
ish party away from the old moorings. It has to them become
necessary to find a new ground upon which to cast anchor, or
be carried entirely away from Judaism. This doctrine has been
accepted as furnishing the best refuge which is available. How
unsatisfactory it is when compared with the Christian doctrine
of the Messiah ! The character of Jesus harmonizes with all
of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. He
fulfills the types of the ancient ritual. He, by his word and
his works, proved himself to be the Christ. In him all the
nations of the earth are being blessed, and shall be still more
in the future. He has already suffered, and here on earth in
some form he shall yet reign from sea to sea.
Some of the other doctrines and practices inculcated in this
book it will be sufficient briefly to mention. Upon the subject
of divine revelation, the most explicit statement is the follow-
ing, from the questions for Confirmation : “ Do you believe
that God, the purest and most perfect spirit, reveals himself to
man in the spirit, according to his essence and will, in order
that man may walk in his ways and sanctify himself in thought,
word, and deed, after the sublime model of Divine holiness ;
and that the doctrine revealed on Sinai to Moses, the greatest
of all the prophets, is truly Divine, and destined and apt to
lead to such sanctification?” Here it is noteworthy that “the
doctrine revealed on Sinai to Moses” is alone specified as
Divine. God also is declared to reveal himself “ to man in
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the spirit.” The language seems to look decidedly in the
direction of rationalism. And yet it cannot be said that ra-
tionalism is anywhere taught unequivocally in the book.
Original sin is explicitly denied. Nothing is affirmed in re-
gard to the fall of man. But it is frequently declared that the
moral nature with which we enter the world is holy. The
proselyte, at his reception in the synagogue, is required to pro-
fess before God that “man, like all other beings, has come pure
and good from thy hand, being born free from the stain of sin,
and is naturally capable to conquer sin completely.”
There is no vicarious sacrifice for sin, according to this book.
The sacrifices of the ancient ritual were more or less typical.
The Messiah suffers, but his sufferings are in no sense a satis-
faction to the law and justice of God. They are the conse-
quence merely of the relation of the Jewish people to the
other nations. And no satisfaction for guilt is required in
order to reconciliation with God. Repentance and holy living
are sufficient. In the afternoon service for the Day of Atone-
ment, the reader says: “The sacrifices and the altar thou
hast taken from us, but not their essence, not the atonement,
not the power of sanctifying our heart-blood for thy holy
service — which he who is conscious of guilt can execute but in
his spirit, and everywhere, as ever ; not thy forgiving love
which is always ready to receive him who repents and desires
to return to the paternal lap, and for which there is no limit of
time or space.” The proselyte, in his profession, says, before
God : “ The intimate communion between thee, O most holy,
and man, is brought about by no other mediation than that of
the imperishable spirit dwelling in us, and is chiefly promoted by
strict obedience to the revealed word, and even the sinner can
find atonement and redemption if he returns to thee in sincere
repentance.”
The following question in the formula for the reception of
proselytes, although general in the wording, seems to be
aimed especially at the Christian faith as to the incarnation of
Godin Christ Jesus: “ Do you believe that he, the inscrutable
spirit of all spirits, can never assume the form of any being
that is in heaven or on earth ? ”
Prayers for the dead are provided. After the interment the
Reader says at the grave : “ May the Lord place under his
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almighty protection the returning soul, that it may behold his
loveliness, and dwell in his sanctuary ; that peace may follow it
and sooth its resting-place. May God be thy guardian, O
slumbering friend ; thy shadow on thy right side. May God
preserve thee from all evil, and guard thy soul ; may he pro-
tect thy going in and going out, now and through eternity.”
A similar prayer is to be said subsequently in the house of
mourning. Indeed, the rabbinical influence is more apparent
in the burial ceremonies than anywhere else in the book. It
is natural that it should here last lose its hold. People are
always slow to cast off customs which are by long usage asso-
ciated with proper respect for the dead. We have here in its
peculiar Hebrew form the kaddish which is to be said by the
reader, mourners, and friends at the grave.
We rise from the examination of this volume with mingled
feelings. There is in some of the forms a pathos which touches
the heart. This is especially true in regard to certain of the
utterances in regard to the past history of the Jewish people.
The voice is not that of wailing, but it has an undertone of
sadness which sounds like mournful music. But the dominant
spirit of the book is of a different character. It is meant to
kindle the feeling that the Jewish people have a sublime mis-
sion in the present and the future. And as we read we cannot
avoid sympathy with the general object, although we cannot
accept the particular form in which it is presented. And we
wonder what will be the influence of such religious forms upon
the Jewish people. In one direction it looks toward the per-
petuation of a feeling of separation from other nations. They
are taught to regard themselves as the Messiah. But in an-
other direction it looks toward a breaking down of the barriers
by which hitherto they have preserved their isolation. Much
that is distinctly Jewish in the services of religion is aban-
doned. There is a longing for a close fellowship with the
whole race of mankind. The ultimate aim presented is the
accomplishment of universal brotherhood in God. Is this
form of Judaism a mere episode? Is it a slight temporary
departure from the general course of the stream? Or is it a
new channel which is begun to be opened, and into which the
waters will more and more pour themselves, until the whole
volume empties itself at length by this way into the sea ? We
506
A Jewish Prayer Book.
[July,
are confident at least of one thing. It is that this modern
form of Judaism is one of the methods by which God is pre-
paring his ancient people, in the fullness of time, to receive
Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah and the Redeemer
of men.
“ Come then, thou great Deliverer, come ;
The veil from Jacob’s heart remove ;
O bring thine ancient people home,
And let them know thy dying love. ”
Art. VIII.— WHAT IS TRUTH?
By Prof. Jacob Cooper, D.C.L., Rutgers College.
This is a question of prime importance, since it underlies
all moral and metaphysical speculation. Moreover, all pro-
gress in knowledge assumes not only the existence of Truth,
but that it can in part be discovered. This question is, at the
same time, a crucial test by which to determine the character
of the inquirer ; for it is easy or difficult to answer according
to the temper of mind in which it is approached. He who de-
sires to know, and is willing to receive with becoming humility
the response to this momentous inquiry, will invariably find a
solution to his immediate difficulties, which is all that can rea-
sonably be demanded. For if light be given at each succes-
sive step, the conditions of life are met ; since this exists only
in the present, and each moment is a stepping stone to that
which is beyond.
But, if we will receive an answer to any question, it must be
propounded according to the conditions under which the sub-
ject of inquiry presents itself to us. Neither Nature* nor
Revelation will be forced to testify and yield their secrets ex-
cept to those who come into full sympathy with them.
The question concerning the nature of Truth is as old as
speculative philosophy, and the responses given have been
most diverse. Frequently it has been asked contemptuously,
* Bacon, Nov. Organum, Lib. I., Aph. III. N atura enim non nisi parendo vin-
citur.
1877-]
What is Truth ?
507
under the belief that it could not be answered ; and this
rendered the questioner both averse to the labor necessary to
find a solution, and unwilling to accept it if offered. Besides,
a fruitless search in the wrong way begets doubt, since the
mind is prone to conclude that what it does not find after
laborious effort, cannot be discovered. For men readily adopt
the doctrine of Protagoras,* and make themselves the measure
of all things ; and hence believe that what does not submit to
this standard does not exist, or is not worth the discovery.
Truth, in its essential nature, is one of those primary no-
tions which are so simple that they cannot be explained ; since
any of the terms employed in the definition are more obscure
than the thing to be defined. For a necessary condition of a
definition is that it makes something clear, which before was
dark. The labored efforts to explain this notion in words have,
therefore, been misspent ; and the results, assuming the protean
shape of the terms employed to elucidate, have diverted at-
tention from the real object of pursuit. This has led Pyrrho,
Democritus, and their many followers, to doubt the existence
of Truth ; and, as a necessary consequence, to believe nothing.
For if there be not this foundation to build upon, of course
there cannot be knowledge, and this unbelief is a magician’s
serpent, which does not merely swallow up all others, but, if
consistent, swallows itself. The trouble, however, in such
definitions, arises because that has been attempted which
is impossible from the nature of the case to be done, save by
a superior intelligence. It cannot be doubted that he who gave
understanding to men, can, if he choses, make primary notions
more clear than they now are to us, either by strengthening
the intellectual powers, or by presenting the idea in a different
view. This might be done by resolving that which is to us,
with our present powers, a primary notion, into something more
elementary ; or by elucidating the idea through its relations.
The latter was done by our Lord, when on trial before the
Roman governor, through the explanation of an abstract
primary conception by means of a concrete example. This is,
indeed, the most satisfactory sort of elucidation ; for nothing
* Plato Theaet., 152 A. Ilpoorayopai a>ri<5i yap nov navrcov xPVnaTOOV
perpov arS poonov sivai, r&3V psv ovrcjv , e6n, icov 8s pi) ovrcov,
.£»S ovk e6tiv.
5o8
What is Truth ?
[July,
can be clearer than the exhibition of a principle in its actual
working. Accordingly, the definition by which Christ declared
himself to be the embodiment of the Truth, becomes clearly
intelligible through its relations. Guided, then, by this author-
itative utterance, we may adequately define Truth to be: CON-
FORMITY TO THE Will OF God.* This may be described-
further as : The relations of things established by the Divine
Will, and which are expressed in the creation and government
of the universe.
A moment’s reflection will satisfy any professed Theist that
the relations of things, both physical and moral, are not for-
tuitous, but exist in the modes we find them because the
Creator fixed them so. Whether he could, consistently with
the Divine character, have arranged all things in different
relations toward each other, is no question of ours ; for we
have to deal with them as they are, not as they might be con-
ceived to have been made. Yet we know it must be the will
of a perfectly independent originator to dispose those things
which he has created in that way which seems good to him-
self. For before the act of creation, the choice to form a
universe of matter and spirit must depend on himself alone ;
and out of all the possibilities within the reach of infinite re-
source, that must be selected which conforms to his will. “He
spake and it was done ; he commanded and it stood fast.’'
Thus the simple reason why we find the relations of moral and
physical nature to be what they are, is because God willed them
to be in this way rather than any other. Hence, the idea of
morality or physical law existing independently, or being ante-
cedent to the will of God expressed in their constitution, is an
absurdity. The question indeed, mooted by Kant, “whether
it is conceivable that the universe could have been created on
any other principle, as, for example, that the truths of geometry,
physics, or morals, would have been diametrically opposite to
what we, as now constituted, apprehend them to be,” has no
relevancy to our subject. It is conceivable, we think, because
we are not limited by our experience in making postulates.
* The “ Will of God ” is not employed to denote a single one of the Divine
attributes, but the result and expression of all in harmonious action. The dis-
tinction between the ethical and voluntary character of the Divine Nature is not
well taken, and shows confusion of thought in those who contrast these attributes..
i877-]
What is Truth ?
509
Hence, any supposition contrary to fact may be entertained,
even contradictory to the senses, and may be thought of
apart from all its relations, without involving absurdity merely
by its conception. But the instant we connect it with the
order of thought, such conception falls to the ground.
Truth, then, being the conformity to the will of God, as
made known to us by its expression in creation and the
Divine government, it follows:
1. This Truth is one and indivisible, save in thought, wher-
ever it is found. It would be impossible, without writing a his-
tory of speculative philosophy, to discuss all the theories which
have been held respecting the essence and relations of Truth.
For every inquiry after new facts, every investigation of unex-
plained phenomena, is only a question about Truth in its appli-
cations. A search after its essence embodies the substance of
Realism ; while the substitution of a name instead of the
essence in each case where truth exists, is Nominalism. Both
these conflicting systems, however, are only species embraced
under a higher genus, and are coordinate in our conception of
Truth. Plato, and those who follow him, hold that names,
whether general or particular terms, represent actually exist-
ing things, and these are ideas or images which have had a
being from all eternity, and were the patterns after which God
created the world.* Hence, the embodiment of these ideas
in creation are the manifestations of Nov ? as AtjpiovpyoS, a
Divine Intelligence.! This is Realism, and so far presents no
objectionable features, because we are compelled to believe
that God created the universe according to his pleasure, and
that each thing made was fashioned in conformity to an act of
his will. Those, again, who follow Aristotle and reject Real-
ism, discern in the name of a thing no actual existence, but
merely a sign by which it is signified. Yet these have in mind
some energy, blind or intelligent, according to their attitude
toward Theism, which, while known to us only by name,
because it cannot be apprehended by the senses, produces a
* Timaeus, 38 C. Kai nard to nocpdSEiypa rrjS cdoovidt cpvdEcpi, iv co?
ojuoioraroS aurai Kara Svvapiv ■//• to per ycip Sr/ TtapaSeiy/ia ndvTa
aiaova eStiv or, 6 S' ecu Sid reXovS Tor ditavTa xporov ysyorcuS te nai
cor real edopErovS.
f Parmenides, 132 D. Td pir EiSr/ TavtX arditsp TtadaSsiypaTa kdTarai
ev rrj cpudEi, tcc S' aXXcc tovtoiS koixsrai xca Eivai opoioopaTCc.
5io
What is Truth ?
[July,
world from nothing, or develops it from matter eternally exist-
ing. Truth, according to this view, is the correspondence with
things as they are ;* and the existence of all things must be
conformed to the Supreme will, whether that be conceived of
as a personal God, or as the laws of Nature. So we see that
the earliest schools into which all metaphysical speculation has
been divided, agree in this, that Truth is conformity to the
supreme directing power. Indeed, according to the deep
utterance of Coleridge, all men must be either Platonists or
Aristotelians ; that is, must accept one or the other view of
the relation of mind to matter. Hence, if the universe be a
creation, Truth is the conformity of the thing made to the will
of the Maker ; and if it be a development, this is conformity
to the law of growth. Undoubtedly the Platonic idea is more
agreeable to Christian modes of thought ; and, accordingly,
his whole philosophic system readily adapted itself to the
doctrines of Revelation. For if the Greek thought of the world
being made after the ideas which were taken by the Divine
mind as models, the Jews believed that not only all the
articles of ceremonial worship were fashioned after the pattern
shown to Moses in the Mount, f but also the entire earthly
system was a transcript of the heavenly.:]: The Christian
notion that Jesus was the instrument by which the universe
was made, and is the Divine energy pervading all things,
agrees well with the Platonic conception of preexistent types.
For as the Idea was in the Nov 5 or Divine Mind from all
eternity, so the Only Begotten was in the bosom of the Father.
And as the embodiment of the Idea produced a visible world, §
so the Eternal Father was declared in the person and work of
the Son. | The Christian Church was perfectly justified in
holding that Christ was the Truth itself, for he distinctly de-
clared this fact. And as he was the Truth, both personified
and embodied, so he knew no will but God’s, and did no work
but his. Through him was the will of God actualized ; since
without him was not anything made that was made.^f Thus
* Aristot. Met., 993 Bekk. ӣ162/' ehcc6tov ojS e'xei zov Eivai, ovtgq xai riji
.dhr/tbaEiS.
f Numb, xxv : 40. f Ezekiel xl-xlvni.
$ Plato Timaeus, 37, C. D. || John i : 14, 18.
IF John i : 3.
1877-]
What is Truth ?
51 1
the Divine purpose was revealed through him to the compre-
hension of men ; and as he acted in perfect conformity to the
Divine will, his whole life was a continued exhibition of the
Truth, not merely as a mental abstraction, but realized in a
concrete example. The pious believer views Christ as the
expression of the will of God, who sums up in himself all that
we can know of Deity or his works. And so, in Christian logic,
he is the middle term of comparison through which alone the
creature can know the Creator. Hence, when the saintly and
acute Malebranche would see all things in God, this means
that nothing can be known in its absolute verity, except when
viewed in its relations to the Divine nature.
Now, if Truth be conformity to the Divine Will, it must be
one and indivisible, except in thought. Plato got a glimpse
of this oneness, and struggled hard to develop the doctrine,
but was forced to admit that it transcends finite intelligence.*
There cannot be two wills about the same thing, without being
either identical, which is absurd ; or at variance, which would
involve a contradiction inconsistent with the Divine character.
This conformity is seen perfectly in the order of the natural
world. There is no such thing as error or conflict here.
Nature is everywhere constant to herself, and exhibits unity of
plan and ultimate design. Every process of scientific investi-
gation proceeds upon the constancy maintained by the laws of
Nature, whether they be themselves a directing power, or
-merely the expression of God’s will. However much a scientist
may question the dicta of morals, or doubt the existence of a
higher Intelligence which directs the movements of matter,
still he is positive in his belief in the constancy of those laws
which govern the material world. He experiments with the
view of obtaining a particular result ; he interrogates matter
by his crucibles, his scales or his glass, in the full assurance
that if he asks aright, the correct answer will be given. More-
over, he is equally sure that the answer is correct whether it
establish or demolish his theory ; and hence, no matter how
many times he fail to attain his object, the interrogation is
renewed again with as much confidence in the constancy of
Nature’s laws as though he had not failed a single time. Thus
far he is consistent, because he rests on the firm basis that
* Plato Republic, 511, A. B.
512
What is Truth ?
[July,
whatever nature responds is true. But when he pushes his
theory so far as to substitute the process by which force acts
on matter, or the laws which regulate this movement for that
Intelligence which directs and gives efficacy to those laws,
then he forsakes his own method. For he attempts to put the
mode by which Intelligence acts in place of that Intelligence,
the result of force for force itself. With jealous incredulity he
guards the process up to the chasm between mind and matter,
then makes the leap from the natural, and, as he acknowledges
no spiritual, lands nowhere. Even when he is aware by the
highest of all knowledge, distinct consciousness, that his de-
termination to try an experiment is wholly distinct from the
bodily act, still he assumes, in the face of his own rigid method,
a generative force in those materials which his senses teach
him act only as they are acted upon. Here is the greatest
absurdity of all the ages. Cicero well said there is no
tenet so absurd that it has not found some philosopher to ad-
vocate it.* And surely there is none comparable to this,
that while all the operations of Nature are invariable, that they
are so fortuitously because nothing has made them constant.
But when we listen to the voice of reason speaking within us,
or the word of Revelation without us, we recognize a universe
which is not the result of chance. The stones and minerals
beneath our feet did not create themselves out of star dust
(which, like Topsy, “ growed ”), nor, by fortuitous jumble, ar-
ranged themselves with mathematical accuracy. The forces of
Nature did not correlate themselves; since these are, per se,
repellant, and do not spontaneously combine for concerted
action. As well might a conflagration collect and arrange the
materials so as to build up a Chicago in a night. It would be
absurd indeed to expect that an explosion of nitro-glycerine
would build a ship, and direct it successfully through a long
voyage. But what shall we say of the theory, that Titanic
forces, without an intelligent master, elaborated this world of
marvellous symmetry and beauty, then directed it on its voy-
age, not for a day or a year, but from age to age, impelling it
on its course without stop or collision ? Yet this is only one of
an infinite number of similar spheres sailing through space, in a
system of connected orbits so intricate that no calculus of
*Cicero, De. Div., II., 119: Nescio quomodo nihil tam absurde dici potest quod
non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum.
1877-]
What is Truth ?
513
earth can grasp its movements. To believe that this is all
effected by fortuitous impulse, does violence to common
sense, and proves the mind which clings to such a theory unfit
for rational speculation. For no person, not wilfully blind,
can fail to see that undirected force segregates rather than
aggregates, and destroys instead of creating. Thus the mind
instinctively recognizes that all harmony and beauty in the
visible world, all symmetry of atomic structure in organized
matter, all obedience to law and constancy of action, result
from the command of a Being possessed of infinite intelligence
and power. Again, Truth is shown to us by answering the
end for which a thing was made. Hence, accident or uncer-
tainty in the result to be reached is inconsistent with its
conditions as fixed by a superintending governor. In any
scheme of intelligent providence, every part must have its
purpose and fulfill the mission assigned to it. For in this way
it conforms to that will which foresaw all the possibilities of
things before they were created and willed their arrangement
and issue. The members of this vast creation were written in
the Divine book of universal Providence when as yet there
was none of them.* And when in continuance they were
fashioned, they grew up into that wondrous Cosmos whose
parts are so fitted to each other that they have one common
end in view,f and work, both matter and mind, like soul and
body, together.
But while Truth is one and indivisible, save in thought, we
may speak of physical and metaphysical, or moral and politi-
cal Truth ; but these are only different names for parts of one
and the same thing — that is, conformity of the agent to the
creating and governing purpose of the Supreme will. There
can, therefore, be no conflict between these coordinate parts
of one idea which rests for its authority upon the determina-
tion of God. Yet we hear so much said about the conflict
between Religion and Science that many are prone to think
they are irreconcilable, and therefore the utterances of
one or the other must be false. And as those facts which
appeal immediately to the senses offer a readier and simpler
criterion of proof, it is taken for granted that they are true ;
while the utterances of Revelation which do not, from the
*Ps. cxxxix: 16 (Hebrew). fCleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, 12-13.
5H
What is Truth ?
[July,
nature of the subject matter, submit to the test of the senses,,
must be false whenever the latter appear to be in conflict
with the former. It is forgotten that, before we can say there
is such a conflict, we must fully comprehend the testimony of
both these witnesses. Without this we may think we have
convicted one or the other of falsehood, while in reality we
have only exposed our own ignorance. Hence, we cannot say
that either is false according to the testimony of the other,
unless we master and classify all the facts of physical nature,
and fathom the depths of Divine intelligence. For, however
glaring a contradiction there may be apparently between
them, yet a single one of the innumerable facts which never
entered our minds might, if known, resolve every difficulty,
and show, instead of hopeless discord, a most beautiful har-
mony, when the coordinate utterances of verbal and material
revelation are viewed in their complete generalization.
Hence, we assert that it is impossible for any intelligence , short
of omniscience , to convict Revelation of falsehood by the testimony
of Nature.
The conditions of all knowledge are groping through the
darkness of ignorance, and fighting errors of our own creation;
The absurdities of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy sub-
jected it to the taunt of Alphonso, King of Castile : “ If this
be the plan on which God made the universe, had I been con-
sulted I could have suggested a simpler working scheme.”
But this false structure of the cosmical system was really no
charge against the true one. Men of shallow brains and deep
prejudice against religion said, in this generation, that the
Bible could not be true because it sanctioned human slavery.
Men of still shallower brains endeavored to prove its lawfulness
by appeals to the usages of those who were the channels through
which Revelation was delivered ; as though the truth could be
blamed with all their personal failures in duty. Advance
in science and morals has swept away both errors. We may
now laugh at the mazes of the Ptolemaic Cycles ; but we do
not believe the truths of astronomy have been changed. \\ e
rejoice that a higher plane of religious life enables all men to
see that the spirit of the gospel forbids every condition that
rendered slavery possible; how much soever Moses may, for
the hardness of the Jewish heart, have suffered these things.
Still the Bible is no more true and pure, now that we are
i877]
What is Truth ?
515"
able to receive its doctrines, than when men charged God
foolishly. Yet the bitter controversy between scientists or
nature-worshipers and those who reverence a spiritual God, con-
tinues unabated. Both have often erred through lack of
knowledge, and made themselves ridiculous by assertions
which a better understanding of their respective subjects ena-
bled them to disavow. Each, for a time, thought that he alone
possessed all the truth. Many are the bulls which Popes have
hurled at comets or other scientific meteors which crossed
their ignorant horizon. Theologians have, through a great
preponderance of zeal over knowledge, compromised their
cause by asserting that certain results of scientific research
were false because in conflict with the Bible. But the mis-
take was that they made the Bible assert what it does not, and
substituting their own interpretations, have been put to shame
because their theories have been falsified by the undoubted
facts of science. Yet the persecution of Galileo is not due to
any error or intolerance of revelation, but to a false interpre-
tation of what it really says. Such mistakes have made the-
ologians more cautious and humble — cautious in not jeop-
ardizing the cause of religion by asserting a conflict between it
and science where there is none ; more humble, because they
find that the Bible does not reveal all its meaning at once,
but from age to age, as the world becomes prepared to receive
its teachings. But any number of mistakes of a similar sort
fails to teach scientists modesty when bitten by the rabies of
hostility to Divine Revelation. For they are bent on discov-
ering, not identity, but contrariety of teaching betwen the two
witnesses. And as no person ever desired, strongly and per-
sistently, to believe anything without setting out to obtain
facts to sustain his pet idea, or else distort those already known,
so as to make them subservient to his purpose, such discrep-
ancy is sure to be found. One part of human nature is en-
mity against God ; a fact undeniable, whether we look at the
world in general, or interrogate the individual conscience. The
revelation from heaven increases this enmity by exposing and
reproving sin ; and so men are bent on destroying the light
lest it may disclose their hidden works of darkness. No other
theory will account for the inveterate hatred which is exhib-
ited against revealed Truth, since it comes laden with joy and
blessings to a world full of misery.
5 16
What is Truth ?
[July,
Repeated failures in discovering the secrets of nature have
made scientists humbler in their own sphere, so that when they
come to an apparent contradiction in natural phenomena, they
do not, for an instant, suppose this discrepancy is real, but
rather that it results from their imperfect deductions. Hence,
they seek some higher law by which the seemingly discordant
results can be harmonized, or struggle with patient experi-
ment to discover whether nature will verify their facts. How-
ever the issue may be, they always think the fault lies with
themselves, or arises from the necessary limitations of human
knowledge. They may well remember the multitude of theo-
ries that have been paraded before the world in all the pride
of confident ignorance, yet had soon to be buried out of sight
as an untimely birth. Each of the sciences is the record of a
struggle up through false theories, many of them now so ridic-
ulous that it looks like a caricature of the human intellect to
believe they were ever advocated. These facts ought to make
scientists respectful in their attitude toward revealed religion,
and cause them for shame to stifle their exultation at the pre-
tended periodical collapse of that revelation towhich the world
owes all its liberty and material progress — at least until their
own bantlings cease “ mewling and puking in their nurse’s
arms.”
The greatest achievements in scientific research have been
made by those who admitted no conflict with revealed Truth.
The pioneers in every department of investigation have been
those who recognized the universe to be the handiwork of God,
and who explored every part of nature with the feeling of true
children disporting themselves in their Father’s house. His
revealed Truth becomes more clear because it is mirrored in
the material world. For since the Divine countenance is vis-
ible in all the works of creation, and there is but one kind of
truth, its different parts testify to each other. Cleanthes says,
in his Hymn to Zeus,* “ There is but one reason which per-
vades all things, and by which all are governed.” And Virgil
embodies this doctrine when he says :
“Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscit.”f
Common sense must teach any unprejudiced mind that if
Line 20.
f /En. VI., 726-7.
i877-]
What is Truth ?
517
Truth manifests itself through significant signs, there is every
reason to believe its utterances, though rational speech will be
still more clear. If a Supreme intelligence must precede to
establish order, this will communicate with those possessed of
intelligence by unmistakeable utterances. And hence, while
the declarations of Truth are equally veracious, however they
are seen or heard, when the God of Truth speaks directly, his
voice must be obeyed first, because its authority cannot be
misunderstood. Every candid mind must therefore believe,
with Bacon, the revealed word of God, no matter what contra-
dicts ; and rather consider his own reasonings at fault than the
divine oracles. The great pioneer in modern scientific re-
search, and the author of the only method of inquiry recog-
nized as valid, is pleased to say:* “ Atque illud insupee sup-
plies rogamus ne humana divinis officiant ; neve ex resera-
tione viarum sensus, et accensione majore laminis naturalis,
aliquid incredulitatis et noctis, animis nostris erga divina mys-
teria oborietur ; sed potius, ut ab intellecta puro a phantasiis
et vanitate repurgato, et divinis oraculis nihilominus subdito
et prorsus dediditio, fidei dentur quae fidei sunt. Postremo, ut
scientiae veneus, a serpente infuso quo animus humanus tu-
met et inflatur, deposito, nec altum sapiamus, nec ultra soli-
nem, sed veritatem in charitate colamus.” If scientists would
imitate this reverential spirit of their acknowledged path-
finder, we would have no more of the conflict between religion
and the laws of nature.
II. Truth is unchangeable because it is the embodiment of
the Divine attributes.
A glance at the visible world reveals constant changes going
on about us. These are not confined to the narrow sphere of
our lives, where everything is mutable to such a degree that our
mortal existence is compared to whatever is most transitory*
Even the solid earth undergoes transformations from age to
age, so that the grotesque fauna and gigantic flora of a former
period look as though they belonged to an entirely different
world. The winds toss the sands in deserts where once the
sea thundered against its shores. Portions of the earth’s sur-
face have sunk, and the sites of cities are covered by the
ocean ; or by the lake, where the mountains flowing down have
* Pref. ad Instan. Mag.
(New Series, No. 22.1
33
5i8
What is Truth ?
[July,
raised the level of the waters. But the laws producing these
results abide unchanged amid all the revolutions they make,
for the everlasting God directs each movement. The same
mysterious vapor goes up to water the earth now as when cre-
ation was but just finished. The plant produces seed after its
kind, varying within specific limits, but constant to its estab-
lished order as the pendulum to its arc. The fish swims, the
bird flies, the ravenous animal tears its prey, the ruminant
quietly chews its cud. Man walks erect, and the troglodyte
goes on all fours, just as at the first. All is regularity and or-
der. The same laws sway the material world, and therefore
the phenomena are constant. This gives confidence in all the
offices of life. The cultivator of the soil goes forth to his work
in the full assurance that seed time and harvest will never
fail. The investigator of Nature’s secrets pursues his studies
relying on the same recurrence of phenomena, without possibil-
ity of failure, provided the like conditions be observed. On
any other supposition all his efforts would be made at random,
and new discoveries could not be classified, because no one
could tell to what department of science they belonged. This
constancy, however, is corroborated afresh by each new induc-
tion, no matter where it be made. For even those physical
phenomena which up to our own day were considered so en-
tirely accidental that their fickleness passed into a proverb,
have, when better understood, been found to be equally cer-
tain with the rest. Hence, the expression, “ As uncertain as
the wind,” can no longer be used, because the course of the
wind and the state of the atmosphere are now predicted with
nearly the same accuracy that other physical phenomena are
anticipated.
The same fact may be seen amid the varying and seemingly
contradictory modes of mental action. It is true, that when
we look at a multitude of the conflicting metaphysical sys-
tems, instead of presenting the clearness and constancy of
truth, they “come like shadows, and so depart.” Many prob-
lems which are as old as speculative thought, and whose solu-
tions have often been claimed by self-appointed leaders, are
still unsolved ; and some of the laws which regulate the men-
tal processes are not yet explained so clearly as to leave no
doubt. But the reason for this is obvious. The facts are not
1877-]
What is Truth ?
519
sought first, and the law educed by a patient and unbiased
classification ; but the theory is predetermined, and then the
facts distorted to fit it. Yet despite this confusion of systems,
there are certain leading principles running through all ; and
speculative thinkers, like scientists, however unreasonable in
other respects, have never been absurd enough to charge their
own mistakes and incomplete deductions upon the unerring
Truth after which they were searching. Still the establishment
of law, the offer of rewards and threat of punishment, proceed
on the assumption that there is constancy of mental action un-
der given circumstances. All theories of morals, all systems
of art and criteria of beauty, the canons of criticism and science
of persuasion, must rest upon such assumption. If the mind
of man acted without any uniformity, there could be no logi-
cal or mathematical formula. Nay more, words would convey
different significations to each man ; and any common sign of
communication could not be found. The progress of know-
ledge depends upon this certitude of mental action. Other-
wise there could be no acquisition of theoretical knowledge in
the aggregate of mankind, nor experience in the individual.
Though natural phenomena were invariable, and the actions of
moral agents the same under given conditions, yet, if the
modes by which each man viewed them were diverse, there
could be no matured experience. The individual would know
no more in ripe age than the child when it first opened its eyes
upon the world. Hence, he would have no legacy of collected
and verified information to bequeath to his successor ; and each
age of the world must remain equally ignorant, because the
sport of intellectual uncertainty. But because mental phenom-
ena, under fixed conditions, are invariably sure, the historian
gives us results which have been arrived at after a careful re-
view of human conduct in the past, and these serve as a lamp
to guide us in the future. Euclid’s Geometry has remained
for more than two thousand years as the basis for mechanical
mathematics ; and the Organon of Aristotle still supplies the
mode in which men must reason, if they do so correctly.
Sophocles forces our tears at the miseries of the unfortunate ;
Aristophanes provokes our laughter at the absurdities of man-
kind, by appealing to precisely the same feelings and present-
ing the same motives that Shakespeare and Rabelais did in
520
What is Truth f
[July,
their day. While individual phenomena of mind may be un-
accountable, and the actions of men occasionally abnormal,
still there is constancy within limitations. Nature must have
room for play in her operations, else they cease. So meta-
physical phenomena, while subject to law, must have freedom
of action, even more because a new factor, the self-determining
power of the will, is necessary to its production. Even the
doctrine of chances, in its relations to human conduct, is sub-
ject to a higher law of certainty by which any event, however
variable in its production, has its inconstancy confined within
fixed bounds, and, therefore, can be predicted with perfect
confidence. Life, when considered in the individual, is subject
to so many fortuitous circumstances, that no person can have
the assurance of an hour’s existence, yet in the aggregate of a
large multitude can be predicted with mathematical precision.
Perhaps there is no business which, if carried out with perfect
accuracy and integrity, is more sure to enrich than life assur-
ance ; yet the duration of life depends on an innumerable mul-
titude of contingencies, which mostly arise from each man’s
own course of action in conforming to, or disagreeing with,
the laws of health. His action may be good or bad, accord-
ing to his own voluntary choice. And this choice is swayed
by so many motives, apparent, it may be, but often hidden
even from himself, that nothing but Infinite wisdom could
determine the special result of each act. Yet they are all
amenable to a governing principle which can be discovered.
And such is the case with all intellectual and moral ac-
tions. Were it not so, we repeat, progress would be im-
possible, and men more helpless than the brute. For the
latter is taught by instinct, and so contains within itself
all the knowledge necessary to enable it to fulfill its destiny —
blindly, it is true, to itself, but still certainly. Men, however,
having no guide but reason, and this having no fixed data
from which to draw inferences, each would be made subject to
every chance, and perish because he could never accumulate
knowledge.
This conformity to the will of God is evidently complete in
all his works save in human volition. Here, however, is an
element of disorder, which cannot be accounted for save on the
principle that man can act in opposition to his Maker’s com-
1877-]
What is Truth ?
521
mandment. This freedom is a primary truth, incapable of ex-
planation, yet necessary to be assumed unless the distinctions
between right and wrong be obliterated. The presence of sin
in a world created and governed by a holy God is also unac-
countable, but yet testified to by consciousness, our highest
appeal. Indeed, this truth, and the assurance that our guilt
arises from our own wrong-doing, is certified to as emphatically
by the individual consciousness as by direct revelation. It
introduces a new element in the calculation of human motive,
but no uncertainty in the result. For while this manifests
lack of conformity to the Divine will, the discord is confined
within determinate limits. Pharaoh acted as freely, as wick-
edly, when, deaf to oft-repeated warnings, and while he saw
more than the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, he
persisted in opposition to the command of God. Still for this
very cause was he raised up, that he might exhibit the power
and glory of the Divine government in the punishment of
wicked men. The obdurate Jews acted freely in putting to
death a man declared to be innocent after the most searching
examination which stern Roman law could enforce. Yet this
was effected by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. The hot passions of men rage in fury like the waves
of the sea. But it is written of both : Thus far shalt thou go,
and no farther. Both in the moral and physical world, the in-
fluences act either separately or in combination to produce the
determinate result. The heathen poet saw this when he said :
“ The counsel of Jove was fulfilled all the time.”* God com-
missions his prophet to declare : “ My counsel shall stand, and
I will do all my pleasure.” f Hence, each particle of matter,
each natural force, each voluntary action, is subjected to this
all-controlling principle, and is perfectly obedient to its mis-
sion. Were it not so, everything would fall into confusion.
For if one portion of this world could act contrary to its duty,
then each other part, being connected with it, must be influ-
enced by its error. A mistake of a single figure in the largest
calculation vitiates all the process subsequent to its occurrence.
The smallest wheel in a complicated machinery can mar the
action of the whole. Hence, failure in the least of Nature’s
processes leads to failure in all. But since every part alike is
* Iliad, I., 5. rhoS 6' treAeiero ftovXr}~
f Is. xlv : 10.
522
What is Truth ?
[July,
impressed with this conformity to the Divine will, and accom-
plishes the end for which it was created, the whole moves on
from age to age in perfect harmony. No confusion mars the
perfect movement ; no flaw in the mechanism causes a stop ;
but the universe marks out its unending years on the dial of
time.
III. — This truth is capable of demonstration in exact pro-
portion as we come into harmony with it and it falls within our
range of possible vision. Much is said about the clearness of
proof which some of the sciences afford. Their methods of
demonstration are lauded as though they cannot lead astray;
and are themselves attractive since they give the student a
tangible reward for his labor. The mathematical sciences, as
they deal with abstract number and discrete quantity, are sup-
posed to yield a sort of proof unique in kind, and possessed of
a certainty which belongs to no others to the same degree.
Next to these, those sciences which deal with matter di-
rectly, which can therefore be subjected to sensible tests, offer
almost or quite equal certainty. Their certitude is often con-
trasted with the working in other departments of knowledge,
especially with those which employ metaphysical or moral
reasoning. The one kind is claimed to offer infallible demon
stration ; the other probable, or, from the nature of the sub-
jects about which it is conversant, moral proof. And this is
said to range all the way from possibility to moral certainty.
What this may mean, it is the business of those who use the
terms to explain. One thing, however, is beyond, question : that
the certitude in the one case or the doubtfulness in the other does
notarise from the nature of the objects investigated, but from
the methods of inquiry or the persons who institute them.*
For when we examine closely we see that the accuracy of re-
sults in geometry, for example, arise from the character of the
terms used and the data agreed upon. There is no reason, in
the nature of the thing, why a definition should not be as clear
touching one department of knowledge as another. For unless
Truth lies at the basis of each of them, it is impossible that the
* Aristol. Met. 993, Bekk. Ovk ev roi5 npaypadiv, aAA’ ev ijulv to
ai'riov k6ziv avzt /?. fiti/tep ydp nod r a r <av vvxr EpiSaiv uitpaza TtpoS
to cpeyyoS e'xei ro keB' r/iiepav, ovzoo xai zijs ipuzipciS ipvxpS 6 rovS
npoi za zijj (pccv spcdzaza ndvioov.
I877-J
What is Truth ?
523
responses given to such as investigate them should be wor-
thy of acceptation. For, however clear the method and cogent
the application, the answer can be no more true than the sub-
ject which furnishes it; as the stream can never rise higher
than the fountain. Each science, then, rests ultimately on the
Divine will as manifested in the nature of its subject matter.
In those cases where infallible responses have been given, if
any there be, the reason is that the conditions under which
Nature submits herself to be questioned have been complied
with implicitly. For God speaks distinctly, in his works and
in his word, to those who are willing to ask aright. Seek and
ye shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you, is writ-
ten over every door of knowledge fit for the use of men. But
in no other way can an answer be expected. Had Pythagoras
entertained some conceit as to the relation between the square
of the longest side of a right angled triangle to the sum of the
squares of the other two sides, he would never have completed
the demonstration. But by using adequate terms always in
the same sense, and divesting them of all irrelevant meaning, he
arrived after the result which was true to Nature. Had he pur-
sued any other course, the truth of the proposition, though
not attained by him, would still have existed in Nature all the
same, awaiting some discoverer who would seek according to the
conditions of geometry. The whole body of scientific truth, as
now known, and all that lies in the fertile womb of the future,
existed in esse in the beginning of time ; and only awaited com-
pliance with the proper laws of investigation suited to each
case, to be in posse for the good of the world. Those in the
pursuit of truth have often had an inward assurance that they
had arrived near where their prize lay concealed, yet failed to
reach it. This fact is seen in any of those sciences which are
thought to yield the most satisfactory proof. In the application
of geometry to the measurement of angles, heights, or distances,
the approach to perfect accuracy is indicated precisely by the
degree of compliance with the conditions imposed by Nature.
A near approximation is obtained, so that we may confi-
dently say, the sum is greater than A and less than B. Mount
Everest is more than 28,000 and less than 30,000 ft. high. Is
there any uncertainty about its height in reality? No sane man
can think this ; and when by instruments of greater accu-
524
What is Truth ?
[July>
racy, and through the use of methods more precise the altitude
is established for all practical purposes, it is still not absolutely
correct. This process is like the asymptotes, where there is a per-
petual approach of the two lines without ever meeting. Still it
is all the time plain that the facts in the case are not changed
by our ignorance or knowledge. Take an example more nearly
concerning practical life. Let it be proposed to establish the
latitude or longitude of a given place. It is determined approx-
imately, so that geodesy can fix upon one point in a certain lo-
cality, and another at a short distance from the first, and assert
with full assurance that the desired meridian is between them,
without being. able, however, to say precisely where. By a bet-
ter compass and more accurate trigonometrical calculations,
the point may possibly be found and the absolute meridian
is fixed. So, in the early survey of a territory, the lines may
not. either through haste in the survey, or employment
of unskillful men, be correctly laid off, and prove fruitful
sources of dispute between contiguous owners. A strip of land
may be in litigation, while each proprietor willingly admits that
his neighbor rightfully possesses the greater part of what is
considered his estate. The boundary is somewhere between
the two lines claimed by the respective parties. The point is
to determine where, so that the true amount of land may be
adjudged to each. In all thest cases the matter in dispute is
not uncertain in itself, and is made plain provided the proper
appliances be employed for determining the facts.
It may be said that these are examples taken from concrete
mathematics, and that the uncertainty of the result arises from
the elements of imperfection introduced by instruments or their
manual application. But the like failures to obtain absolute ac-
curacy is shown when the calculations are made from numeri-
cal data. For in the integral calculus there are multitudes
of cases where more than one answer will satisfy the require-
ments of the problem. Many equations again are interminate;
and there is as much room for ingenuity in fencing with the cabal-
istic signs of quaternions as there was with Barbara. Celarent,
etc. of the schoolmen. Besides, pure mathematics, like every
subject of investigation whose terms are, ex necessitate, postu-
lates, must, as an independent science without applications, be
a nullity. For, if you dissever numbers from objects, you di-
1877.]
What is Truth ?
525
vest them of their significance, and they become purely
arbitrary signs. They can be made to signify anything at the
caprice of him who employs them ; and consequently they
carry with them no more certitude than words dissociated from
ideas. For a term, whether it be angle, number or logical
postulate, becomes a variable when applied to any concrete
quantity, and ceases to be a factor in demonstrative reasoning,
in the strict application of that term. While in the region of
pure abstractions, the results deduced from them may be ever
so true, they are meaningless to us, and therefore of no practical
value.
The claim that moral truths can be established with un-
doubted certitude by a process of demonstration, even as the
facts of material science, has been scouted as chimerical. The
few who have attempted the purely scientific method in met-
aphysics or morals, have been derided as on a par with those
who sought the philosopher’s stone — mere visionaries, who pur-
sued an ignus fatus. The comparative ease of demonstration
in physics, the extreme difficulty of reasoning in morals, being
assumed, have given speciousness to the notion that the dif-
ference between the processes in these two subjects results either
from a necessary diversity in the methods employed, or the facts
lying at the basis of the inquiries. Let it be granted however,
that there is truth in spiritual things, and that the phenomena
of mind range themselves under laws; then, assuredly, if the
proper methods of investigation be adopted and pursued with
sufficient patience, vigor, and energy, these laws may be — nay
must be — disclosed with as much certainty as those concerning
any other class of subjects. Let the true issue be kept clearly
in view. If it be asserted that there is no Truth, or that it is
unknown to us as Democritus held,* then there can be no
controversy. For what does not exist or is not knowable, of
course cannot be discovered. But if it exists, then, wherever it
leaves vestiges of its presence, there it can be traced while
these are kept in view. And if as Goethe says, f“there be in man
a desire for Truth, and aptitude for discerning it when found,”'
* As quoted by Aristotle, Met. 1009, Bekk, ?/r 01 ovSev t ivcn dXjjOii r/ r/Uiv
adr/^-OY.
t Wahrheitsliebe zeigt sich darin, dass man liberal] das Gute zu finden und zu
schatzen weiss.
526
What is Truth ?
[July,
then a pursuit which looks steadfastly upon its vestiges with-
out being turned aside by individual bias, must end in its dis-
covery. f or whether the T ruth be called by this or that name is
immaterial, provided the mind has an appetency for it. In con-
sidering the dual nature of man, if we assume, as is rational,
that provision is made for both parts in proportion to their
wants, we must admit that moral truth fills a larger sphere in
his requirements than physical. For the chief difference which
■discloses itself at first sight between man aftd the lower ani-
mals is that the former have spiritual powers in predominance,
while the latter are nearly all corporeal. If pabulum be fur-
nished according to the need of each part of man, the sum of
spiritual truth must greatly exceed physical. Why, then,
should it not be as easily attainable? The reason is, that men’s
minds are darkened by error, their opinions colored by preju-
dice ; and so choose falsehood because it is in harmony with
their nature. In pure science the result is a matter of perfect
indifference. The powers of numbers take no hold upon the
passions of men. It matters nothing to our inclinations whether
two angles be equal to each other or not. The composition
of water appealed to no man’s predilections so as to sway his
judgment in the analysis. Hence there is no trouble from
this source in defining terms and fixing a nomenclature of sci-
ence which shall be invariable. And when this is done, the
reasoning process will bring the conclusion with equal pre-
cision everywhere. But the diversity lies in settling upon the
data employed. These pass out of the sphere of indifference
where pure abstractions remain, and come under the influence
of our feelings, our prejudices, or our desires. Each man,
then, defining an idea according to his subjective condition,
even when he hears the same word that another does, may
not think of precisely the same thing. So the quantities em-
ployed in the metaphysical calculation being different, the an-
swers must be diverse. Yet in each case there is an approxi-
mation to agreement, else men could not understand each
other. If vocal sounds and written characters had not some-
thing more than casual agreement, there could be no such thing
as communication between man and man. Babel would be
enacted all the time. Language grows out of the roots of
mutual understanding by symbols, and is the concrete expres-
1877-]
What is Truth ?
527
sion of identity in thought. Its laws are as certain as those of the
anatomical structure of the body. The fragmentary roots of lan-
guages, whose peoples have long since been buried with them,
when accidentally exhumed by the comparative grammarian,
enable him to reconstruct the framework of the ancient speech;
even as the single bone in Cuvier’s hands would be sufficient
for him to build again the skeleton of the animal which had
perished from the earth.
This partial agreement in the use of words shows that there
is identity at the bottom after which all are striving; and the
approximation will be proportionate in every case to the clear-
ness of each man’s idea and his freedom from prejudice. Given
two shades of meaning, one of which conveys less than the re-
ality, and the other more ; then the Truth must be somewhere
between them, as surely as the proper line is between the dis-
puted boundaries of two proprietors, or the different determina-
tions of the meridian in geodesy. If the mind could be cleared
sufficiently from individual bias to give each term its exact
meaning, every man who is equally free from prejudice would
accept this term as an adequate expression of an idea under-
stood between them. If, next, a vocabulary were invented for
each special department of reasoning with fixed meanings, like
the nomenclature of chemistry or botany, the logical process
employing these terms must deduce as trustworthy responses
as geometry. While demonstration in mental phenomena is
more difficult to most persons than in material, yet this arises,
as we have seen, not from the inherent obstacles of the sub-
ject, but from those thrown around it by our methods. Besides,
when we look at the subject with candor, we see that there are
many truths in mental and moral action quite as well estab-
lished as any facts in physics. Certain acts are pronounced
good or bad, according to some inherent quality, by every per-
son possessing a given amount of moral training, with as much
confidence as the mind passes judgment on any facts in na-
ture. That it is wicked to remove landmarks ; that it is inhuman
to oppress the orphan, to rob the widow, to withhold the
wages of the hireling, were facts as clear to the mind of Job as
that the Pleiades always rose in their season, or that silver ore
was found in its proper veins. There can be no doubt that it
is sinful to lie and steal ; for parents to abandon their infant
528
What is Truth ?
July,
children; to injure the helpless or abuse those who have not
provoked us. If we look about us we will discover an im
mense stock of moral truths attested by everybody of given
intelligence and culture, and which are no more likely to be
disputed than the postulates of science. Conventional regula-
tions may declare certain acts to be right on the other side of
the Alps which are held wrong on this side ; but such enact-
ments do not affect our consciousness of immutable morality ;
and, of course, do not change the nature of the acts themselves.
Besides, the first truths in one department of knowledge rest
on precisely the same basis as those of another. They are
self-evident facts which are accepted as soon as they are pre-
sented to that mind which is capable of taking in their full
meaning. It is vain to say that many, perhaps all, these fun-
damental truths in morals have been disputed in some age or
nation, and that there is no agreement now among men as to
the exact number of these which are to be accepted. For the
same objection could be as legitimately urged against the first
truths in physics, provided the words be employed in the same
sense in both departments of speculation. For we must bear
in mind that first truths depend for their reception on a given
amount of intelligence. As soon as a man has a full comprehen-
sion of the terms employed, he accepts as true, beyond dispute,
that the whole is greater than any one of its parts ; that two
things which are equal to one and the same third are equal to
each other ; or that two plus two are four. But there was a
time in the history of many nations, just as in the life of the
individual, when these facts could not be considered first truths
or necessary conditions of thought, because they were not
comprehended. The decimal notation clearly points to a
period when no person using it could reckon beyond the num-
ber of his fingers. For him all the superstructure of concrete
arithmetic had no meaning ; while the abstract number, in its
most elementary conceptions, never entered into his thoughts.
Not one of the axioms of geometry could be accepted by him
as a primary truth, for his mind was not sufficiently advanced
for its comprehension, and nothing can be accepted as such
unless it present itself under the two conditions — full under-
standing, and the immediately consequent assurance of its
verity. When the moral perceptions are blunted by continu-
1 877-1
What is Truth ?
529
ance in sin, or where they have never been educated up to any
standard of intelligent virtue, its most rudimentary notions
might be denied or questioned. And this might be done by
persons of the highest intellectual culture, as in the case of Rous-
seau, Macchiavelli, and the most refined voluptuaries among
the later Romans, or such as are sunk in the lowest depths
of barbarism. The conscience which is dead cannot perceive
first truths in morals ; the intellect utterly uncultivated fails to
discern, and therefore may deny as well as affirm, the axioms of
science indifferently. No legitimate argument in proof of a
radical difference between the clearness of scientific and moral
truth can therefore be drawn from the nature of their respective
first truths, or the treatment they have received among men.
There is no subject in speculation about which we hear more
ioose talk than this of first truths. It is impossible to fix an
infallible criterion for their determination, because they differ
in number according to the natural capacity or special culture
of the individual. Euclid’s Geometry contains no truth, first
or of any order, to the majority of mankind. But when this
book, after being carefully withheld for along time by Paschal’s
father, accidentally fell into the hands of the wonderful twelve-
year-old boy, the young genius turned over page after page,
from the first to the last, with the remark, “All this is plain !”
So to Mrs. Somerville, whose friends wished to preserve her
girlhood unharmed by such dangerous things as Algebra, when
the forbidden work was obtained by stealth, it was all first
truths, because it found a capacity just suited to its acceptance.
It is plain, therefore, that first truths depend on culture ; as
we may see illustrated continually in young children, or persons
at any age who are mastering a particular branch of knowledge.
As they rise to a higher level, new facts present themselves
under such conditions that they are at once understood and
accepted. The mind then appropriates them as ideas so clear
that they need no proof ; nay, rather their proof is involved in
the general growth of the mind, for they are as evident and as
true to it as the consciousness of its own actions. This is the
method of advancement in culture ; and first truths multiply
in exact proportion to the expansion of the mind, and the
strength which experience gives it through the sloughing off
of old errors. Like the change of night into day in the mate-
530
What is Truth ?
[July
rial world. At first all is darkness, and nothing is seen. There
is no knowledge ; because while there are objects innumerable
close by, and the sense of sight is present and vigorous, there
is no medium through which they can be discerned. The be-
nighted traveler is lost, and gropes around in vain to find,
where he is. He may feel something touching him ; but even
this he cannot recognize. Yet, as the few faint rays of light
reveal the outlines, he sees the distorted shapes, but cannot
comprehend anything around him. Gradually, however, the
eye of day opens, and his intelligence expands with the in-
creasing light. He determines the larger objects with accu-
racy, and traces the more minute. And when the full flood of
light is spread by the risen sun, all is so clear that he takes in
at a glance the entire panorama which was around him before,
but of which he had no conception. This capacity for first
truths is not confined to any one department of knowledge,
and is everywhere amenable to precisely the same laws of
growth. It must, however, be borne in mind, that the growth
will be in the department in which the knowledge is gained.
Hence the culture of pure intellect will not necessarily enable
the moral sense to gain new truths ; neither will the develop-
ment of this attribute insure mastery by the reasoning power.
These may, and often do, act and react on each other ; but
they may also be cultivated in isolation, or at one another’s
expense. But in precisely the degree that they are respect-
ively cultured will be their capacity in their several spheres to
receive new truths, and these in time become primary and
fundamental to further growth. It may be asked, What, then,
constitutes a first truth, and wherein does this differ from oth-
er information clearly apprehended by the mind ? As soon as
an idea becomes so clear that it is spontaneously accepted, and
requires no explanation or proof — nay, rather, is obscured
thereby — it is a first truth to that order of capacity and culture
which so receives it. And those conceptions which so com-
mend themselves to the universal acceptation of cultured peo-
ple, are, by common consent, classified by themselves. But
it is evident that their subjective nature, as well as their num-
ber, is regulated by a sliding scale. For if the power of the
mind were greatly enlarged, not only would their number be
increased, but their clearness also. And even the most funda-
1 877-]
What is Truth ?
53*
mental and primary of them all, while incapable of explana-
tion in terms, may still be elucidated by concrete examples.
And hererein was the power of Jesus Christ as a teacher pre-
eminent above all others, by raising from the dead and reha-
bilitating the ideas of virtue, which before were thoroughly
comprehended and possessed by all, but had lost their vital
power. This he did constantly, illustrating abstract truth by
parables, and actualizing it in his life.
It is further claimed that there must be a radical difference
in the nature of proof which the moral and physical sciences
furnish, because of the opposite fortunes which they exhibit.
It is said that not only the first principles of scientific truth
are unquestioned, but .that a grand system of matured results
have for ages defied doubt ; while, on the other hand, all
questions of moral and intellectual philosophy are still open
and subject to frequent controversy. It is astonishing to hear
it maintained that the first principles of science are so well
settled and clear that there can be no question about them,
when this assertion is in the face of undoubted history. For
example: The constituents of many metals which have been
long known are each, sui generis, and have the same structure,
hardness, weight, and other properties. They can be mixed,
separated, changed in form, but the identity of each ultimate
particle remains the same in all these mutations. It was con-
ceded that no one of these substances could be made without
uniting their constituent parts in their due proportions. Yet,
in defiance of all established laws of chemistry, the foremost
scientific men of the middle ages, and almost to our own time,
wearied themselves in the fruitless search after some substance,
which, by its mere touch, would transmute the base metals,
into gold. So again : No physical truth seems more obvious
than that no power can be generated by the multiplica-
tion of machinery, and that action and reaction are equal.
But the world still abounds in visionaries, the lineal descend-
ants of those who gave their lives to the attempt to invent
perpetual motion. It is further accepted as a fundamental
maxim that, ex nihilo nihil fit, or that every effect must have
an adequate cause. But, to escape from the necessity of
admitting a Creator, such as common sense, as well as revela-
tion, declares to be a necessary condition of the existence of a
532
What is Truth ?
[July>
world, this axiom is quietly ignored or sneered at as absurd.
Scientific men will reason with perfect clearness and cogency,
proceeding upon the principle of causation up to a certain
point, and then, because they cannot trace it iny further with-
out admitting a personal Creator as an indispensable factor, will
stop short and say that the world created itself ; that the law
of development first enacted and next executed itself. True,
we are left in doubt as to the method. And equally in the
face of experience — an experience as certain and satisfactory
as demonstration can be — it is asserted that mind cannot
influence the action of matter, or that there cannot be a physi-
cal effect without a physical cause ; that my will does not
determine whether my pen write this word rather than that.
In this way, to carry out a favorite theory, the plainest and
most common facts of consciousness are belied, and skeptics
forsake all consistency in a futile attempt to show that Revela-
tion is a myth.
It is indisputable that men can attain scientific truth in no
other way than by putting themselves cn rapport with the pro-
cesses of nature. Conformably to this process, those modes of
action by which the natural world accomplishes its work are
discovered through the generalization of a great number of
facts by observation and experiment. They are called laws,
because they are, to the extent we comprehend physical phe-
nomena, the methods by which the world is governed accord-
ing to the notions of a Theist, or governs itself in the view of
the naturalist. But, in either case, these laws mean nothing
more than the mode by which the world is controlled ; and are
more or less adequate expressions for this government in the
proportion that men, by submitting their intellectual powers to
the course of nature, come into harmony with its motions. So
the laws of thought, whether framed in logic or pure math-
ematics, signify no more than the mastery' which the mind
gets over its own processes, by submitting to the necessary
conditions of thought as applied to itself, or to numbers in
their abstract relations. In moral ideas the case is the same.
Whence arise the notions of Civil Law or of the government of
men in their social relations? It is not, certainly, a matter of
chance or indifference that some things are deemed virtuous
and others vicious ; and, as a consequence, the former de-
1877-]
What is Truth ?
533
serve protection and encouragement, while the latter call for
repression. If we consider law as the expression of the moral
sense touching what is required between man and man, we
can discern that this ariseswspontaneously from sympathy with
those relations which the Creator established between himself
and his creatures. Hence, that greatest of all discoveries, the
discovery of law, is nothing else, so far as it is of human origin,
than the gradual assimilation of man’s ideas to the will of God.
The growth of a code is a clear illustration. At first, among
savage tribes, the notions of justice are crude and variable ; so
changeable, indeed, that nothing but the most rudimentary
principles can be considered fixed. Force, directed by indi-
vidual passion or caprice, is so powerful, and the general con-
ceptions of right so weak, that club law usually prevails. Still,
at this stage, we see that even the names of right and wrong,
force and law, show a struggle after the realization of a more
perfect system ; and this felt want in time triumphs over the
chaos, and reduces it to order. The ideal of right and justice
as the principles by which men should be controlled, seen
dimly at first, just as all abstract conceptions must be by the
uncultivated, become clearer during the weary struggle be-
tween right and might, until at last the divine will expresses
itself in a code claiming to provide for all the relations of man
in civil society. Nor is this code inferior, in point of distinct-
ness, to any system of scientific truth ever discovered. The
Corpus Juris Civilis may well take its place by the side of Eu-
clid’s Elements , Aristotle’s Organon, or Newton’s Principia. For,
though the methods of proof be different, they are as convinc-
ing in the one class of ideas as the other. Demonstration, as
we have seen, in the most rigidly exact of all sciences, may pro-
duce more than one answer, which will satisfy the conditions
of the problem. Yet, if the . terms be constant, but one answer
can be correct. Thus the processes of Nature escape our notice*
when we are looking on, and mature their results, which we
must accept, though unable to account for their production.
This shows, not the imperfection of the truth itself, or its mani-
festations, but the infirmity of the understanding whose powers
‘Bacon, Nov. Org. Aph. IV. Reliqua intus transegit ; Aph. X. Subtilitas
naturae subtilitatem sensus et intellectus multis partibus superat.
[New Series, No. 22.) 24
534
What is Truth ?
[July:
are hedged in by boundaries on all sides which it cannot pass.
Hence, the distinction between demonstrative and what is called
moral reasoning has no foundation in reality, and should be
abandoned as futile. For all that is purely demonstrative con-
sists in postulating terms, which are either first truths, or assum-
ed as such, and therefore incapable of proof, and, by reducing
them to the syllogistic form, compel a conclusion. But this is,
in fact, a begging of the question, as has often been said of
Aristotle's Dictum ; an assertion which is undoubtedly true, if
considered apart from the matter of the argument. For, as
you must assume a first truth for a major premise, and thea
compare the extremes with this in order to discover their agree-
ment or disagreement with it, this process rests in its last
analysis upon a petitio principii. The whole reasoning starts
out from a truth assumed but not capable of proof — assumed
because believed, not believed because proved. For if it were
capable of further proof, logic forbids its assumption until its
claims to credibility be established. This dealing with assump-
tions, however, effects no progress ; for it is reasoning in a circle,
as every process must be which employs only pure abstractions.
This was the field cultivated so assiduously by the logicians of
the Middle Ages, yet nothing grew there but bristling subtleties
and endless war of words. But in the so-called probable reason-
ing, which is the only kind that can have any relation to us, if we
take the labor sufficient to possess ourselves of the facts, and
have culture enough to comprehend them in their special ap-
plication, we accept the response they give with as implicit
faith as the mind has in its own processes. If uncertainty
linger anywhere, it is because some of the facts bearing on the
subject are still hidden or not comprehended. But by increas-
ing information — that is, by bringing ourselves more into har-
mony with the subject — we narrow down the uncertainty to us,
while confirmed all the time that we are near the truth, and
believe it as strongly as though already in possession. Belief
bridges over the chasm which separates us from absolute knowl-
edge,* and does this equally for the Christian and the naturalist,
* Montaigne, Essais; Livre, II, Chap. XII. La participation que nous avons
a la cognoissance de la Verite, quelle qu’elle soit, ce n’est point par nos propres
forces que nous l’avons acquise ; Dieu nous a assez apprins cela par les tesmoigns
qu’il a choisis du vulgaire, simples et ignorants, pour nous instruire de ses admira-
biles secrets.
i8 77-1
What is Truth ?
535
by bringing them into harmony with that Infinite Wisdom
who formed the relations which hold throughout the universe
of mind and matter. For it is the prerogative of God, who
created all things, to see them just as they are ; and hence the
nearer we are conformed to his character, the closer we will
approach to that standard of knowledge. Consequently, the
sum of all knowledge is, to know God in the person of Jesus
Christ, who is the embodiment of his will, and therefore of
the Truth.
The conclusion to which we arrive then, is, that all Truth is
one ; that it is unchanging ; that it can be known with as much
certainty in one department of knowledge as another, provided
the like methods be employed in its investigation, and these
methods consist in bringing ourselves into harmony with its
subject matter. Hence, no man who is a skeptic can be a safe
guide in scientific inquiries, much less in morals ; for his method
is radically vicious. “ Falsrts in uno, falsus in omnibus," is an
incontrovertible maxim of human nature. However much
progress he may make in his special researches, he cherishes so
much error of method by habitual unbelief that all is thereby
vitiated. For, just as in spiritual things, he who clings to one
violation of God’s law will sap all his own moral character, and
make shipwreck of faith ; so he who admits one false principle
in his scientific investigation will tincture the whole with error,
and convict himself of folly.
53^
The General Assembly.
[July,
Art. IX— THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the
Ijnited States of America met in Farwell Hall, Chicago, 111., on
the 17th of May, 1877. It was organized by the election of
the Rev. James Eells, D.D., of Oakland, California, as Modera-
tor, whose prompt and wise rulings, firm and courteous bearing,
greatly facilitated the dispatch of business and promoted the
order of the body.
The time required for the judicious selection of committees
and preparation of business is represented to have left the
body with little to do the first three days of the session. The
evils of such a state of things are so many and obvious that
none will dispute the importance of devising a remedy. For
this we have not far to seek. It can be had in two ways : 1.
Arrangements may be made for proceeding forthwith with the
reports from the boards of the church, although these must usu-
ally go to their appropriate committees, whose reports must
come in, before the Assembly becomes ready finally to dispose of
the questions that may arise. Still, we think arrangements might
be made by which all matters pertaining to them, not involving
debatable questions of policy, might be at once disposed of,
such as hearing the reports, with the general statements and
speeches of the secretaries and others. 2. Another way of
occupying the first days of the meeting is to hear, discuss and
dispose of reports of committees appointed by previous Assem-
blies to report to the next. There are always some such re-
ports to be made, often on important subjects. In the Assembly
at St. Louis, in 1874, the majority and minority reports of a
committee on the consolidation of the boards were made at
the very beginning of the session, and the time of the Assembly
from the very first was fully occupied with the discussion and
disposal of this subject, when not occupied with other matters.
Thus full justice was done to this great question of that ses-
sion, while other matters received their usual, but, in too
many’cases, inadequate attention ; we say inadequate, because
some -crude deliverances, abstract and concrete, were hastily
rushed through the body near its close. Many such would
die before coming to their birth, if they could be properly dis-
1 877.]
The General Assembly.
53 7
cussed. Fortunately most of these lie dead upon the records,
and are never heard of afterward. But some live to cause a
sad amount of needless irritation and discord. We shall pro-
ceed to notice a few of the topics which engaged the attention
of the Assembly.
REDUCED REPRESENTATION.
Both overtures sent down by the previous Assembly to the
Presbyteries, for such a change in the basis of representation as
will sufficiently reduce the size of the Assembly, were rejected
by decisive majorities. This result disappointed no one. The
report of the committee appointed by the last Assembly on
the subject was also presented. Although this virtually ad-
vised acquiescence in the present basis for a time, with an en-
largement of the minimum number of ministers requisite to
institute a Presbytery, in order to mitigate the growing in-
equality in the basis of representation, and slightly check the
increase of the Assembly, yet the sense of the evils of the
present system is too keen and wide-spread to admit of any
quietus not provided in their removal or abatement. It was
forced upon the Assembly by the utter absence of invitations
from any place for the next Assembly. No .place wanted, or
felt itself equal to, the task of entertaining so vast a body for
two weeks. It has been quite a fashion to decry reference to
the burden upon hospitality as a petty thing, very unworthy
to come into the argument on this subject. This will do for
romance and sentiment ; and if these were the only elements
in the case, it might safely be ignored. But excessive demands
upon hospitality have their own way of compelling consider-
ation. When no place can be found willing to undertake the
burthen, it being too grievous to be borne, then it will have
weight in the argument and policy adopted. The case of the
annual conventions of the American Board, so often alleged
for the purpose of showing that the entertainment of vast
numbers of people may be easily accomplished, is not
parallel. That is a meeting for only two or three days. Let
it extend itself for a fortnight, and how many places
would be found to welcome the convocation ? The churches
in the cities in which the Assembly has met since the reunion
have, after exhausting the possibilities of private hospitality,
been put to an expense of thousands of dollars for the enter-
538
The General Assembly.
[July,
tainment of the body. What conceivable justice is there in
the whole church imposing such an assessment on the Presby-
terians of a single city?
The subject, therefore, has not been and cannot be laid to
rest. The Assembly referred the whole subject to a new com-
mittee, of which Dr. Van Dyke was Chairman. They renewed
the recommendation of Synodical representation on the basis
of two delegates, one Minister and one Elder for every fifty
ministers or fractions thereof. The result was that after
recommitment and amendment, following the most searching
discussion, it was agreed by a nearly unanimous vote to send
down the following alternative overtures to the Presbyteries:
Shall Chap. XII, Sec. 2, of the Form of Government, be so amended
as to read : *• The General Assembly shall consist of an equal delega-
tion of Bishops and Elders from each Synod in the following propor-
tions, viz. : Each Synod consisting of not more than fifty ministers
shall send one minister and one elder ; and each Synod consisting of
more than fifty ministers shall send two ministers and two elders; and
in the like proportion for any fifty ministers in any Synod ; and these
delegates so appointed shall be styled Commissioners to the General
Assembly.
“ The Commissioners shall be chosen by the Synod with due regard
to the rights of its Presbyteries. If the Synod send three or more
ministers or three or more Elders to the General Assembly, not more
than one-third of its Commissioners, and if it send two ministers and
two elders, not more than one-half of its Commissioners, in any year,
shall be taken from the Presbytery, and in a series of years equal to
the number of Presbyteries in any Synod. At each stated meeting of
the Synod it shall be determined and announced which of the Presby-
teries composing it are entitled to furnish Commissioners to the General
Assembly to be held next to the one ensuing, and to how many Com-
missioners, ministers, or elders, or both, such Presbyteries are re-
spectively entitled. And prior to each election of Commissioners by
the Synod, the list of the Presbyteries entitled to furnish Commission-
ers at that time shall be read, and each such Presbytery shall be called
on to nominate, through its representative or representatives, who shall
have been designated by it for the purpose, as many Commissioners as
it is entitled to furnish, and an equal number of alternates. If such
nominations are not made, the Synod shall, nevertheless, proceed with
the election; every Presbytery shall be represented by at least one
minister and one elder.”
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The General Assembly.
539
Also, shall Chap. XXII., Sec. i, be so amended as to read: “ The
Commissioners to the General Assembly shall always be appointed by
the Synod from which they came at the meeting next preceding the
meeting of the General Assembly, and as much as possible to prevent
all failure in the representation of the Synods arising from unforeseen
accidents to those first appointed, it may be expedient for each Synod
to appoint an alternate to each Commissioner to supply his place in
case of his necessary absence ” ?
And in Art. II. shall the word “ Presbytery,” wherever it occurs, be
changed to “ Synod ” ?
Your Committee recommend that the foregoing overture be trans-
mitted by the Assembly to the Presbyteries for their action.
Your Committee also recommend that the following alternative over-
ture be transmitted to the Presbyteries :
Shall Chap. XII., Sec. 2, of the Form of Government be amended so
as to read : “ The General Assembly shall consist of an equal delega-
tion of Bishops and elders from each Presbytery in the following pro-
portion, viz. : Each Presbytery consisting of not more than forty minis-
ters actually engaged in ministerial work as pastors, co-pastors, pastors-
elect, stated supplies, evangelists, missionaries, professors in theologi-
cal seminaries, or those assigned to the work of the Church by the
General Assembly, shall send one minister and one elder; each Pres-
bytery consisting of more than forty and less than eighty ministers, em-
ployed as above specified, shall send two ministers and two elders ;
each Presbytery consisting of more than eighty and less than 120
ministers, employed as above specified, shall send three ministers and
three elders in like proportion for each additional forty ministers
actually engaged in ministerial work; and these delegates so appointed
shall be styled Commissioners to the General Assembly” ?
It was also ordered that meanwhile, until a decided reduction
of the Assembly can be accomplished, an assessment be made
upon the churches of two cents per member, in addition to that
now made for the mileage fund, to be paid to the Committee
on Entertainment for each Assembly, so as to aid them in mak-
ing provision for it. This is simply just. It lays upon the
whole church, and not the Presbyterians of some single city,
the burden of paying for that portion of the entertainment of
Assemblies to which private hospitality is inadequate.
In regard to the overtures themselves, it is not unlikely that
one will defeat the other. But together they voice and evince
the almost unanimous judgment of our church that the As-
540
The General Assembly.
[July:
sembly ought to be reduced, and its readiness to work at the
problem till some satisfactory solution is reached. In regard
to the comparative merits of these overtures we have only to
say that the Synodical method affords the easy and natural
basis for a reduction of representation, which can be carried to
any extent as the future growth of our church may require,
and always preserve the nearest possible approach to a sub-
stantial equality of representation of the different portions of
the church. We see no conceivable objection to it on prin-
ciple. The Book, chap, xi : I., defines the Synod thus: “As
the Presbytery is a convention of the Bishops and Elders
within a certain district, so a Synod is a convention of the
bishops and elders within a larger district.” It is only a larger
Presbytery’. But for reasons so well understood that they
need not here be specified, there is a widely prevalent and
deeply-rooted aversion to taking the power of election out of
the hands of the Presbyteries. We and, so far as we know, all
the advocates of reduction are desirous of still conserving this
Presbyterial privilege so far as is possible without sacrificing
other essential principles. Although we have favored the two
previous overtures in favor of Synodical representation, yet in
the failure of these we ourselves have also in committee
recommended one much less to our taste, in the hope it might
prove more acceptable. It counted as the basis mainly pastors
and missionaries, and retained the present number, 24, as the
unitary basis of representation of Presbyteries by one pastor and
elder. It was rejected summarily, to say nothing more. The
same has been true of every attempt at thorough reduction
thus far made, by retaining Presbyterial and evading Synodi-
cal representation. In the overture now made for Synodical
representation, provision is made to secure to each Presbytery
of the Synod the nomination of its due proportion of dele-
gates, in the hope of thus meeting the demand for Presbyterial,
while adopting the method of Synodical representation. It
remains to be seen whether it will be accepted and ratified as
an adequate concession to that demand-
The alternative overture still retains the representation ex-
clusively by Presbyteries. It makes 40 the unitary basis in-
stead of 50, the number adopted in the overture of last year,
which was objected to by an overwhelming majority. It
1877-]
The General Assembly.
541
makes the disproportion between the representation of small
and large Presbyteries less than that just rejected, but still, in
our opinion, altogether too great. We can conceive of meas-
ures of the most vital importance under that system being
carried or defeated by the representatives of a very decided
minority of the church. We do not believe this to be right or
salutary. It is to no purpose to adduce the case of the U. S.
Senate, in which the smallest and largest States are equally
represented. The House of Representatives, which is appor-
tioned upon the basis of the population of the States, together
with the Presidential veto, offsets the Senate and completely
neutralizes the danger referred to. This, therefore, affords no
parallel. Aside of this aspect and tendency of the overture,
we would not complain of another feature, which rules out our-
selves from any place in the basis of representation along with
other editors of Presbyterian journals, and professors in Pres-
byterian colleges. We once ourselves, for the sake of accom-
plishing reduction, took part in preparing an overture having
this feature. But who are those “assigned to the work of the
church by the General Assembly”? Do they include the
members and secretaries of the boards who are otherwise with-
out ecclesiastical charge? We think the line thus attempted
to be drawn somewhat arbitrary and undefined. But we do’
not object. It must be arbitrary, if drawn at all. For better
or for worse, this plan is only a temporary palliative, not a
permanent remedy for the evils under which we now labor.
But this would be far better than nothing, were it not that it
makes it possible for one group of 40 ministers to be the basis
for several times as many votes in the Assembly as another
40 of equal capacity and fidelity to the true church. But
whether either of these plans is sanctioned by the Presbyteries,
or not, we are sure that a way will soon be found for accom-
plishing what is so generally felt to be a necessity — a large re-
duction of the Assembly. The question of entertainment
aside, so large a gathering is unfavorable to the proper matur-
ing and due dispatch of business. The analogy sometimes
claimed to exist between the present Assembly and the
British House of Commons in this respect fails, simply be-
cause six hundred men sitting for prolonged periods of months
and years may overcome difficulties arising from its own mag-
542
The General Assembly.
[July,
nitude which are insurmountable by a body of the same size,
composed mostly of new and inexperienced members sitting
only two weeks. Closely connected with this is the subject
of a
Final Court of Appeals,
brought up in a report from a committee appointed by the
last Assembly, of which Dr. Musgrav.e was chairman. It was
referred to another committee, who reported it back, some-
what amended, in the form of an overture to be sent down to
the Presbyteries for sanction, as an amendment to the constitu-
tion. It was, however, referred to the next Assembly, being
deemed as yet too crude and imperfect in form to be sub-
mitted to the Presbyteries. Some were for strangling it at once,
denouncing the whole project as needless, and tending to a
sort of star-chamber inquisition or despotism. The majority
of the Assembly, however, appear to have been impressed
with the necessity of seeking some plan of accomplishing the
objects for which this tribunal is designed. It is quite clear
that a body of six hundred men, crowded with more non-judi-
cial business than it can well handle, is unfitted for any judicial
business beyond the decision of questions of doctrine and
order, pure and simple, to which, if reduced to half the number,
it would be less unsuited ; still it would remain seriously un-
fitted for the work, incapable of fairly digesting and issuing
half the appeals and complaints that must inevitably reach it
from the various parts of a communion so widely extended.
This was felt and urged by Dr. Hodge and others thirty years
ago, when the churches and assemblies were less than half the
present size. The exigency is met partially at present by
judicial committees and temporary judicial commissions, ap-
pointed by each Assembly pro re nala. The only question is,
whether it shall be provided for in future by such temporary
and casual expedients, or by a permanent tribunal, one-third
of whose members shall have their terms of office expire each
year, the vacancies thus arising to be filled by the General
Assembly? We confess that this question seems to us not
altogether one-sided. The advantages of a permanent tribu-
nal. with its records, precedents, by-laws and growing experi-
ence in ecclesiastical litigation, are obvious. But then the
possible tendency toward a set of rigid, cast-iron precedents,
I877-J
The General Assembly.
543
whereby technicalities become petrified, so as to constrain the
free actings of that eternal justice they were invented to sup-
port, is not to be overlooked or ignored.
The Sewickley Church Case— Publication of Sunday
Newspapers by Church Members.
The editor and publisher of the Pittsburgh Leader , which
issues a Sunday edition, is a member of the church in Sewick-
ley, which quick railroad connections make a virtual suburb of
Pittsburgh. The session of that church has taken no steps to
discipline him, although often urged to do so. The Presbytery
of Allegheny, to which the Sewickley church belongs, enjoined
the session to proceed to take action upon the case, and inves-
tigate the charges so loudly made by the tongue of common
fame. The session appears to have been in doubt as to their
■duty, or for some reason determined to take no step until
they could obtain a deliverance from the General Assembly
touching the present interpretation and application to such
cases of the law of the Sabbath as laid down in our stand-
ards. They accordingly referred the order of Presbyetery to
the Synod of Erie, which reaffirmed it in a very emphatic and
decisive manner, and finally referred this action of Synod to
the Assembly for its decision in the premises. The Assem-
bly, after earnest and thorough discussion, with only three
votes in the negative, adopted the following paper, reported
from the Commitee of Bills and Overtures:
First — This Assembly reaffirms the resolutions adopted by the
Synod and Presbyter}' setting forth the binding obligation of the
Fourth Commandment as expounded in the standards of the Presby-
terian Church and in the repeated deliverances of the General Assem-
bly ; and also the declarations of Synod and Presbytery : That any
voluntary and responsible participation in the publication and sale of a
Sunday newspaper is inconsistent alike with the decree of the law of
God and with membership in the Presbyterian Church.
Second — -That it is entirely within the constitutional authority of a Pres-
bytery to direct the sessions of a church under its care to proceed ac-
cording to the Book of Discipline, and that it is competent for a Synod
to reaffirm such instructions upon a reference of a case asking for its
advice. That the session of the church of Sewickley were bound to
544
The General Assembly.
[July,
carry out the plain meaning of the instructions of the Presbytery of
Allegheny, and that their reasons for declining to do so are insufficient.
Third — That the proper remedy for the Presbytery to apply to that
session, if they continue to disobey the instructions of the Presbytery,
is to put the session under discipline for contumacy.
The protest signed by Dr. Bettinger, Pastor of the Sewickley
Church, and two others, in its fifth article brings to view the
main issues on which the discussion turned, and is as follows :
5. We protest because the exception seems invidious, since, if its
application is correct, it singles out one class of offenders — the pub-
lishers of Sunday papers — a very small class, while it passes over to
the respective Sessions of our churches the thousands, if not tens of
thousands, of similar offenders against the Fourth Commandment —
all those violators of the Sabbath — who voluntarily continue employ-
ers or stockholders in the various Sabbath-breaking commercial and
manufacturing agencies and establishments which a modern civilization
has brought with it.
This is a leading case, and bids fair to be the precursor of
others through which the mind of our Church will gradually
unfold and define itself, not with reference to the sanctity of
the Sabbath or the general law of its observance, but with ref-
erence to its judicial interpretation and application to parties
implicated in what the protest calls “ the various Sabbath-break-
ing commercial and manufacturing agencies which a modern
civilization has brought with it.” The great question, indeed,
is, which of them is or is not “ Sabbath-breaking” ? Nor is it
possible to formulate the law of the Sabbath more than any
other law, human or divine, so that all the varying cases and
circumstances that may arise can be foreseen, or its application
to them determined in advance. We deem the law of the
Sabbath, as expressed in our standards and summarized in the
Shorter Catechism , to be as accurately expressed as is possible in
our language, and, as such, to be of perpetual obligation. “ The
Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting on that day, even
from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on
other days ; and spending the whole time in the public and
private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be
taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.” It is obvious,
however, that the words “ worship,” “ necessity” and “ mercy”
in this statement must be understood somewhat broadly, in
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545
order to acquit vast numbers of Christians, who are of un-
challenged piety, from the charge of Sabbath desecration. And
it is no less obvious that, in its application to new cases and
circumstances, everything depends upon the breadth or nar-
rowness of construction we give to the terms “ necessity and
mercy.” Is the “ necessity” intended absolute, the contrary
of which cannot be in the nature of things, or without the
most palpable and demonstrable injury to the soul or body,
the individual or society, the Church or the world, God or
man? Oris it a relative necessity, a necessity only as it is
judged to be beneficial in the slightest degree, to the health,
the comfort, the welfare of ourselves or others? And of the
things supposed to be, in this sense, necessary to man’s highest
good, who is the judge, or how far is it to be left to the judg-
ment and conscience of the individual Christian, or the Church
courts, or each for each, within its due sphere, and what are the
bounds of that sphere ? The same, too, of mercy. Mercy re-
quires those services on our part which mitigate or prevent
suffering, or danger to the life and health of man, and often of
beast. But who shall undertake to say how much of the labor
done on the Sabbath without scruple by most Christian people
might be avoided without loss or harm of any sort to man or
beast ? Such queries show how much remains to be done be-
fore unmistakable lines of clear and sharp definition can be
drawn in reference to the law of the Sabbath, in its applications.
By this, however, we do not mean that there is ordinarily any
difficulty for the candid mind in determining what is, and what
is not, a desecration of the Sabbath in any concrete case. But
there is great difficulty in formulating definitions and phrasing
detailed rules so that they will precisely include all actual cases
of Sabbath desecration and exclude all others. It is commonly
supposed that accurate definition is in fact, as it is logically, the
first step in any science. But with respect to all but the formal
sciences, all the sciences of actual being, accurate definition has
been shown to be the last achievement. Nevertheless, people
know objects from each other, though they cannot specify the
marks of the difference. The most untutored know a man from
an animal, and humanity from brutality, though they cannot ac-
curately define the differentia, just as all can distinguish differ-
ent faces and chirographies, although, on the witness-stand, a
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The General Assembly.
[July:
lawyer might puzzle them out of their wits in trying to worm
out of them the differential marks So, by a sort of holy intu-
ition, the great mass of God’s people clearly discern whether
given actions have or have not in them the Sabbath-breaking
element, although they cannot give anything more than a con-
fused or inadequate definition of this element in them. The
larger part of the knowledge of men does not get beyond the
first of three stages, severally noted by philosophers as Clear,
Distinct and Adequate. Education, Science, Philosophy are ever
struggling onward from the first toward the last stage of ade-
quate, or relatively perfect knowledge. Now, in this light, we
should think few would have any difficulty in adjudging the
publication of a Sabbath newspaper, in ordinary times and cir-
cumstances, a violation of the Sabbath. It is a piece of secular
work wrought on the Sabbath, not only demanded by neither
“ necessity,” nor “ mercy,” but diverting the minds of vast
numbers from the sanctities of divine worship to the secular-
ises of this world. While the publication of bulletins of news
in times of war, revolutions, or great public catastrophes, may
fall under the category of works of necessity and mercy, as welL
as a thousand things done by the best of people without cen-
sure or question, this does not excuse the publication of a Sun-
day newspaper in ordinary times, whose only influence must
be to divert and distract multitudes of people from the proper
observance of the Sabbath.
Indeed, we do not understand the defenders of theSewickley
Session to dispute this. The protest of Dr. Bittinger, as above
quoted, distinctly classes the Sunday newspaper with “ Sab-
bath-breaking” agencies, and its owners and publishers among
the “offenders against the Fourth Commandment,” “violators of
the Sabbath.” But Dr. Bittinger raises the point that the defi-
nitions laid down by the Assembly do not clearly distinguish it
from other “ Sabbath-breaking agencies,” which no one thinks
of interfering with by church discipline, or otherwise than by
leaving them to the discretion of church sessions. He said in
the debate :
“ Now, why was this case made an exception ? Thai was what he
complained of — if he had any ground for complaint at all. And why
was it insisted that the church in question should not have further time ?
But, it would seem, it must be brought up step by step until the As-
1877 ]
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54 7
sembly was supposed to stand against the recalcitrant session of the
little church nestled among the hills. That church stood by the
theoretical doctrine of the Sabbath, but did the Presbyterian Church,
as a Church, consistently live up to that doctrine ? What, then, would
become of the great railroad corporations? Did Presbyterians hold
any stock in them ? What became of the Sabbath when street-cars
were run in Chicago and all other great cities ? Was this a work of
necessity ? Must the Fourth Commandment be broken in order that
God’s people might be religious? Why were the Sunday trains run,
and why did ministers travel on them to preach the Gospel?”
We confess that, while it is no good reason for failing in the
proper use of church discipline in this case, that it is omitted
in others to which consistency would require its application, it
is none the less true that the church should seek consistency
in her action, and try so to enunciate her principles and laws
that they will cohere and harmonize, not only with each other,
but with her practice, and that her exercise of discipline also
shall be self-consistent. And we do not quite see that she has
reached a deliverance on the subject that squarely meets the
queries above propounded. The minute adopted makes only
that participation in the ownership and publication of a Sun-
day newspaper which is “ voluntary and responsible” amenable
to Church censure. But what participation, in the case of any
who have control over their own property and faculties, can be
otherwise than “ voluntary and responsible” ? And does, or
does not, the same question apply equally to the ownership of
stock in horse or steam railways, or steamers, or the use of
cars and trains run on the Sabbath, even if they be Sunday or
church trains? We confess that we were nevermore surprised
than when spending a Sabbath in Pittsburg, at the consumma-
tion of the Reunion, to read and hear of “ church trains” run
to that Presbyterian centre from the neighboring villages.
We remembered how a delegate from the General Association
of Connecticut, at an Assembly meeting in that city before
the disruption in 1837, told us, on his return, that it and the
region around it were beginning to surpass New England in
the all-pervasive hold which Christianity, with its institutions
and manners, had of the people. He said that New England
would soon be compelled to confess that the glory is departed
to the West, which was coming to eclipse the East. Certainly
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[July,
we have heard of no church trains on the railways of New
England or the East. But we have seen a great decline in the
standard of Sabbath-keeping in New England. We recently
attended one of the leading orthodox churches in Massachu-
setts, famous for its long line of pastors of national fame, who
had been among the foremost promoters of strict, puritanical
Sabbath observance, and opposers of Sunday mails, et id genus
ornne. We saw the leading members of that congregation go
directly from the morning service to get their mails at the
post-office across the street. This appeared to be deemed as
much a matter of course and beyond exception as walking
or riding to church. And we fear that this is an index of the
general relaxation of Sabbath observance which has stealthily
overspread that land, until lately, beyond all countries except
Scotland, celebrated for the strictness of its Sabbath observ-
ance. Nor is New England alone in this degeneracy, as the
facts, not so much brought to view as recognized beyond dis-
pute, in this Assembly discussion about the Sewickley case
abundantly prove.
But, after all, are the “ church trains” necessarily in viola-
tion of the Sabbath ? Circumstances, it seems to us, must de-
termine in each case. It may be. The presumption, where
they are freely used by the Christian public, till the contrary is
made to appear, is that they come under the condition of
necessity and mercy, i. e., that they enable more people to at-
tend public worship with far less labor for man and beast than
would otherwise be required. We suppose it must be for this
reason that the ministers to whom Dr. Bittinger refers use
them. Otherwise we are sure we must have heard some pro-
test in the Presbyterian Ba?iner, which is not apt to utter an
uncertain sound. We judge that it is due to the same princi-
ple that in the large cities the running of street horse-cars on
the Sabbath so largely prevails and continues, and that they
are patronized by great multitudes of Christian people without
scruple in going to public worship on the Sabbath, notwith-
standing the earnest and persistent opposition which for a
time they met from the Christian community — an opposition
always justified, and often effective, wrhere no such necessity
prevails. In the immense growth of cities, largely due to
steam and electricity, all the arrangements of life, and es-
1877-]
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549
pecially of residence and business, are determined at once
by the necessities created and the conveniences afforded by
the modern modes of cheap and expeditious public convey-
ance. Thus, homes are pushed more and more away from the
seats of business, either in urban or suburban localities, these
new means of recent and quick conveyance virtually bridging
over the distance. The same is often true with reference to
schools and churches, and other necessities of civilized and
Christian life. And hence, while all ordinary transportation
should cease on that day, the movement of some cars may
be demanded by necessity and mercy, as involving far less of
labor to discharge the necessary offices of life and religion
than would result from their stoppage. They are in the meth-
ods of modern life, in such places as New York and its suburbs,
much in the position of the East and North river ferries. They
are in place of streets, roads and bridges, because by them
alone can multitudes of people now use these roads in which
these tracks are for purposes of necessary travel. To this it
is due that, notwithstanding all protests to the contrary from
ecclesiastical bodies in the earliest days of the practice, milk-
trains continue to be run, as the only means of supplying the
cities with that indispensable necessity of life, pure milk.
Presbyterian communicants and elders of unquestioned repute
for piety, after church on Sabbath, carry the milk of their
dairies to these trains, often for deliver}' to and consumption
by those other Presbyterian people who will use no other, be-
cause thus alone they judge that they get a pure article. All
this neither justifies nor palliates any movement of railroad
trains for business purely secular, for excursions of pleasure,
or for any purposes not fairly within the domain of necessity
or mercy. While much that is done on many railroads is clearly
not within this description, there is undoubtedly a considera-
ble border-land in which opinions of persons, equally pure and
intelligent, might honestly differ, as almost always happens in
casuistry, or the application of undisputed principles, to cases of
disputed facts, or facts dubious in their inferential relations, if
not per se. But still, a large residuum is left of Sunday work done
by many railroads, which can be justified on no plausible plea of
necessity or mercy, and must, therefore, go to the account of
Sabbath desecration, pure and simple. We do not, then, regard
( New Series, No. 22.) 25
550
The General Assembly.
[July,
all the cases of Sunday railway travel referred to by Dr„
Bittinger as in point, because some are not necessarily “ Sab-
bath-breaking” in their nature. But take the case of those
that are such beyond question. Their stock is owned by
thousands of Christians, including elders and ministers, and
held without scruple and without question. And inasmu chas
it may be readily sold or transferred, can their participation in
it be deemed less than “ voluntary and responsible”? How,
then, is Dr. Bittinger and those who agree with him, to be
met when they allege this fact, as pro tanto, of the same moraL
quality as issuing Sunday newspapers?
The venerable Dr. McKinney, a member of the Sewickley
congregation, a veteran ever “valiant for the truth,” said :
If the gentleman came before the Session and said, “ Though I am
a stockholder of this concern, I don’t approve of the Sunday paper ;
but I cannot control it,” that was enough to satisfy the Session, he
believed. He had heard members of it say so. That would be
enough to satisfy the brethren. He knew that, because he was one of
them. All that was asked was for the brother to say he did not do
what he could prevent — the issue of the paper on Sunday. Just as
men did who owned railroad shares, or stock in a gas company ; when
they had an opportunity to vote against working on Sunday they did so ;
and when they could elect officers they elected men who were opposed
to running cars on the Sabbath — all that in them lay to prevent dese-
cration ; but they didn’t feel bound to sell their stock ; they were not
personally engaged in it, or engaged in promoting it in any way, but
in such a way that they yielded to it, and submitted to it, as they did to
the Government, and the Sabbath mail. He put his letters in Satur-
day and took them out Monday. He was not concerned in the way
they were carried. He had written against Sunday mails, and voted
against them, and done everything in his power to prevent the opening
of the Post-Office on Sunday, but he paid his taxes and was a good
citizen. All they could ask, in the publication of a newspaper, was,
“ Hold your stock if you so please, but, as far as your influence is.
concerned, prevent its being published on the Sabbath day.”
In some cases, undoubtedly, the conscience would be
sufficiently cleared by such a protest without further steps to
get rid of all participation in forbidden, anti-Scriptural occupa-
tions. But would it be so in reference to the gains of a
gambling or betting association, or of a railway making its
1877-]
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551
chief gains from conveying multitudes to places of drunken-
ness and prostitution on the Sabbath? We trow not. And
here, as in so many other cases, it is often hard to draw the
line within which protest and opposition without withdrawal
are sufficient, beyond which they are not. The cases also are
innumerable in which we are to use the food and the con-
veniences of life provided for us without troubling ourselves
with questions as to what Sabbath-breaking or other immorali-
ties may have been implicated in their production or procure-
ment, “asking no questions for conscience’ sake,” since, if we
did, the ongoings of life would be impossible. We once knew a
bright youth of morbidly scrupulous conscience who, for a
time, became afraid to eat any but a few domestic esculents,
in the production of which he felt sure that Sabbath desecra-
tion and slavery had no part. His friends became anxious lest
he should be, in a similar way, set against eating the few articles
which yet sustained life. It is plain that such scrupulosity
would render life intolerable, if not impossible. But, on the
other hand, can one well patronize a Sunday newspaper with-
out knowing, encouraging and participating in whatever in-
fraction of the Sabbath its publication has involved ? Again,
supposing all this settled, we are not yet free from questions
of perplexing casuistry in the premises. Dr. Edson of
Indianapolis said during the debate, by way of showing the
necessity of a caution and parsimony in the Assembly’s de-
liverances that would keep them from being a network of future
entanglements :
“ It would be impossible for any one to turn the General Assembly
into a house that favored, in any sort of way, the desecration of the
Sabbath. [Applause.] They were unanimous about that. But this
was a most intricate and delicate question ; and the statement of it
needed to be so careful, with so little verbiage, and so little rhetoric,
and so much of Scripture, and so much of formal deliverances of the
Assembly, that they could stand upon it anywhere. . . . He had
not heard that most interesting “ personal explanation,” but it appeared
from that explanation that a gentleman quite distinguished upon the
floor must either have borrowed or purchased a newspaper, which he
(the speaker) supposed had no special reputation for piety, and pos-
sibly might be called a Sunday newspaper ; and any voluntary partici-
pation in the publishing or reading of such a paper, he supposed, ought
552
The General Assembly. [July?
not to be encouraged there. [Applause.] He wished to know if
they were going to discipline a member of the Presbyterian Church
who worked all day Saturday and sold his newspaper on Sunday, and
let that brother go scot free who worked all day Sunday and sold his
paper on Monday ? [Applause.] He believed in putting the Sunday
question squarely and fairly — opposing all desecration of the day — so
that it would accord with the standards, the deliverances of the Assem-
bly and the Scriptures.”
Dr. Briggs of Union Seminary believed
“ That the publication of a Sabbath newspaper was unscriptural, but
he was opposed to such an extreme measure as that contemplated by
the resolutions, even as amended by the insertion of the word “ respon-
•sible.” There were numerous questions of casuistry which must be left
to the churches themselves, and which the Presbyteries, Synods and
General Assemblies should not have brought before them, for if so, the
work would be endless.”
If the case of those who labor through the Sabbath to prepare
a Monday morning’s newspaper, which church-members take
without scruple, become none the less perplexing in view of the
present action of the Assembly, what ought to be done with
those who, in order to give their employes the rest of the
Sabbath, issue their daily paper on Sunday but not on Mon-
day mornings? Such a paper, a friend informs us, is published
at Montgomery, Ga. It is evident that the strongest stand
possible should be taken in arrest of the increasing desecra-
tion and relaxed observance of the Sabbath. But much close
thinking is required in order to formulate deliverances which
will stand so that they can be carried out in every exigency to
which the principles of law they lay down will apply. And to
enunciate such as, through incautious or inadequate state-
ment, are in the end self-destroying, hurts more than it helps
the cause they are designed to promote. We do not intend
to intimate that the Assembly’s deliverance could be improved,
but we think it wise to look clearly at the possible cases to
which it may apply, and see whether it requires any additions.
Fraternal Relations with the Church, South.
The following communication was received from the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,
now in session at New Orleans, La. :
i877-]
The General Assembly.
553
New Orleans, May 22, 1877. — The Committee of Correspondence
recommend to the General Assembly the following as our Church’s
reply to the communication received at this session from the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America :
Whereas, The General Assembly of this Church, in session at St.
Louis in 1875, adopted a paper rendering “ special thanks, in the
name of the whole church, to our Committee of Conference at Balti-
more for their diligence, fidelity and Christian prudence,” and in
particular approving and indorsing “ as satisfactory to the Southern
Church the condition precedent to fraternal relations suggested by our
Committee,” viz. : “If your Assembly could see its way clear to say
in a few brief words to this effect, that these obnoxious things were
said and done in times of great excitement, and are to be regretted,
and that now, on a calm review, the imputations cast upon the Southern
Church [of schism, heresy and blasphemy] are disapproved, that
would end the difficulty at once” ; and,
Whereas, Our General Assembly, in session at Savannah in 1876,
in response to a paper from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America, which met in Brooklyn,
adopted the following paper, viz. :
“ We are ready most cordially to enter on fraternal relations with
your body on ary terms honorable to both parties. This Assembly
has already, in answer to an overture from our Presbytery of St. Louis
spontaneously taken the following action :
“ Resolved, That the action of the Baltimore Conference, approved
by the Assembly at St. Louis, explains with sufficient clearness the posi-
tion of your Church. But inasmuch as it is represented by the overture
that misapprehension exists in the minds of some of our people as to
the spirit of this action, in order to show our disposition to remove on
our part all real or seeming hindrance to friendly feeling, the Assembly
explicitly declares that, while condemning certain acts and deliverances
of the Northern General Assembly, no acts or deliverances of the
Southern General Assemblies are to be construed or admitted as im-
pugning in any way the Christian character of the Northern General
Assembly, or of the historical bodies of which it is the successor” ;
and,
Whereas, The said General Assembly at Brooklyn, in response to
the foregoing paper of our Assembly at Savannah, adopted the follow-
ing, which has been communicated to us at our present meeting, viz. :
“ The overture of this Assembly having been received by the General
Assembly in the South with such a cordial expression of gratification,
the Committee recommend that the same resolution, declarative of the
554
The General Assembly.
[July,
spirit in which this action is taken, be adopted by this Assembly, viz. :
‘ In order to show our disposition to remove on our part all real or
seeming hindrance to friendly feeling, the Assembly explicitly declares
that, while condemning certain acts and deliverances of the Southern
General Assembly, no acts or deliverances of the Northern Assembly,
or of the historic bodies of which the present Assembly is the suc-
cessor, are to be construed or admitted as impugning in any way the
Christian character of the Southern General Assembly, or of the
historic body or bodies of which it is the successor,’ now, therefore,
be it
Resolved , By this Assembly, that we cannot regard this communica-
tion as satisfactory, because we can discover in it no reference whatever
to the first and main part of the paper adopted by our Assembly at
Savannah and communicated to the Brooklyn Assembly. This Assem-
bly can add nothing on this subject to the action of the Assembly at
St. Louis adopting the basis proposed by our Committee of Conference
at Baltimore and reaffirmed by the Assembly at Savannah.
If our brethren of the Northern Church can meet us on these terms,
which truth and righteousness seem to us to require, then we are ready
to establish such relations with them during the present sessions of the
Assemblies.
Adopted in General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States, in session at New Orleans, La., May 22, 1877.
C. A. Stillman, Moderator.
Joseph R. Wilson, Stated Clerk.
William Brown, Permanent Clerk.
To the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America, in session at Chicago, 111.
This was referred to the Committee on Correspondence,
which reported through its chairman, Dr. Marquis, in favor of
the Assembly’s passing resolutions expressing regret that the
terms “ heresy,” “schism” and “blasphemy” had ever been
applied to any proceedings or declarations of the Southern
Church or Assembly by any body to which this Assembly is
the successor. After long debate, this recommendation was
rejected by the Assembly, which, by a large majority, adopted
the following substitute :
Whereas, The General Assemblies of 1870 and 1873 have solemnly
decreed that all the deliverances of the General Assemblies during the
late war, so far as they impeach the Christian character and doctrinal
soundness of the body known as the Southern Presbyterian Church,
are null and void ; and
1877-]
The General Assembly.
555
Whereas, Our last General Assembly, reiterating the action of former
Assemblies, declared our confidence in the Christian character and doc-
trinal soundness of the Southern Presbyterian Church, and our desire
to enter into fraternal correspondence with them upon terms of perfect
equality and reciprocity, and cordially invited the Southern Assembly
to send a corresponding delegate to this Assembly ; therefore,
Resolved, That while we are sincerely desirous to be reunited in
closer relations with the brethren from whom we have been separated,
we do not deem it expedient at present to take any further action upon
the subject except to repeat the declaration of the last Assembly, that
we are ready cordially to receive a representative from the Southern
Church, and to send a delegate to their Assembly whenever they may
intimate a willingness to enter into fraternal relations upon such terms.
But while this General Assembly is ready at any time to enter into fra-
ternal relations with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
in the United States, no further action in this matter on the part of this
Assembly is called for at present.
The arguments which prevailed to lead the Assembly to
this issue, forcibly presented by Drs. Van Dyke, Edson and
others, were substantially that, having already declared the
action complained of by the Southern Assembly null and
void, it was going quite beyond our legitimate province to ex-
press regret or repentance for the doings of former Assemblies
of churches now having no distinct, continued existence, and
most of whose actors were no longer on the stage to speak for
themselves ; that fraternal relations would come much sooner
by quietly waiting till things ripen for it than by attempting
prematurely to force it while it yet remains unwelcome to our
Southern brethren ; and, above all, that to establish fraternal
relations by humiliating confessions on our side, with no cor-
responding concessions on the other, was to betray moral
and historical truth ; to proclaim to the world by the most
solemn acts possible that while we were at fault in the utter-
ances of former Assemblies with respect to the Church South,
they were no way at fault when they declared it the “mission
of the Church to conserve slavery,” and thus provoked the
severe denunciation of which they complain ; when they pro-
nounced our Assembly a “ prevaricating witness” ; when they
met our first courteous advances to them proposing fraternal
correspondence with the following salutation, containing
charges about as grave as could well be brought against any
body pretending to be a Christian Church :
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The General Assembly.
[July
“i. Both the wings of the now united Assembly, during their separate
existence before the fusion, did fatally complicate themselves with the
State in political utterances deliberately uttered year after year; and
which in our judgment were a sad betrayal of the cause and kingdom
of our common Lord and Head. We believe it to be solely incumbent
upon the Northern Presbyterian Church, not with reference to us, but
before the Christian world, and before our Divine Master and King,
to purge itself of this error, and by public proclamation of the truth to
place the crown once more upon the head of Jesus Christ as the alone
King of Zion. In default of which the Southern Presbyterian Church,
which has already suffered much in maintaining the independence and
spirituality of the Redeemer’s kingdom upon earth, feels constrained to
bear public testimony against this defection of our late associates in
the truth. Nor can we, by official correspondence even, consent to
blunt the edge of this our testimony concerning the very nature and
mission of the Church as a purely spiritual body among men.
“2. The union now consummated between the Old and New Assem-
blies, North, was accomplished by methods which, in our judgment,
involved a total surrender of all the great testimonies of the Church for
the fundamental doctrines of grace, and at a time when the victory of
truth and error hung long in the balance. The United Assembly
stands of necessity upon an allowed latitude of interpretation of the
standards, and must come at length to embrace nearly all shades of
doctrinal belief. Of those falling testimonies we are the sole surviving
heirs, which we must lift from the dust and bear to the generations
after us. It would be a serious compromise of this sacred trust to enter
into public and official fellowship with tho:e repudiating those testi-
monies ; and to do this expressly upon the ground, as stated in the
preamble to the overture before us, ‘ that the terms of reunion
between the two branches of the Presbyterian Church at the North,
now happily consummated, present an auspicious opportunity tor the
adjustment of such relations.’ To found a correspondence professedly
uponthisidea would be toindorse that which we thoroughly disapprove.”
No special pleading can take out the offensiveness of such
charges which were wrought up in individual speeches, even to
the length of insisting that we were “ chained to Caesar’s car.”
To make retractions and confessions ourselves while we require
no withdrawal of, or regret for, such charges against ourselves,
made by' those to whom we tender our confessions, is virtually
to admit their truth ; an admission which our Southern
brethren would be the last to respect, or to judge a good
ground for establishing fraternal relations.
1877-]
The General Assembly.
55 7
The fact remains that there can be no restoration of fraternal
relations while humiliating conditions are demanded on either
side, or any basis but that of perfect equality and reciprocity.
And we see no reason to change the opinion we have enter-
tained since the rough repulse of our advances in 1870, that
the surest and shortest way to them is to remain quiet, and
wait till some sign is given that our Southern brethren are
ready to enter upon these relations on terms of mutual equality
and reciprocity. Such appears to have been the judgment of
the Assembly.
Communion Wine — Temperance.
We regret to observe that an effort was made to commit
the Assembly to the recommendation of the unfermented juice
of the grape as the only drink fit for the communion. We da
not see how such a movement can inure to the benefit of re-
ligion or temperance. We are very confident that it will be to
the advantage of both not to complicate them with any princi-
ple having so slender a scriptural basis, or likely to gain so few
adherents as the doctrine in question. We are glad the As-
sembly disposed of the matter by making the following wise
deliverance :
That the control of this matter be left to the Sessions of the several
churches, with the earnest recommendation that the purest wine attain-
able be used.
By other action the Assembly happily cast its whole influence
in favor of the great temperance movement now in progress, and
appointed delegates to the convention of representatives from
Christian churches in furtherance of this cause, soon to be
held. We trust that this convention will not fall under the
lead of extremists who will repel the co-operation of earnest
temperance men by a platform of fanatical extravagance on
the one hand, or of those lukewarm supporters whose help
consists more in applying brakes than in clearing the track.
The McCune Case
came before the Assembly on no less than seven appeals and
complaints. This number itself was appalling, and enough to
tempt a body of six hundred men, preoccupied with other bus-
iness quite sufficient to tax them to the utmost during the
brief fortnight of their session, to shrink from undertaking to
grapple with them. With the number now constituting the
358
The General Assembly.
[July,
Assembly, and in the absence of any regular judicial commis.
sion, it is almost a matter of course that all judicial business
which is not deemed of absolute necessity, or which is not sup-
posed to involve some point of doctrine or order that widely
stirs the church, should be switched off on some ground, tech-
nical or substantial. And a judicial committee is deemed ex-
pert and efficient which succeeds in so disposing of matters be-
fore it as to consume the minimum of the Assembly’s time.
In regard to seven separate appeals or complaints, all virtually
belonging to one controversy or issue, it was a forgone conclu-
sion, therefore, that they should all, or nearly all, be dismissed
■or remanded to other tribunals. Such was the result in this
■case. They were all disposed of without actual trial by the
Assembly ; the reasons assigned, so far as we can see, being
*n some cases sufficient, in others of questionable validity.
On these cases the Judicial Committee reported as follows,
and the Assembly adopted the report :
Judicial Case No. 5. — In the case of the appeal of Thomas H. Skin-
ner and others from the Presbytery of Cincinnati, the Committee
recommend that, inasmuch as the so-called appellants were not an origi-
nal party, they were not entitled to an appeal (Book of Discipline,
Chapter vii., Sections 3, 17), and that, therefore, the case be dismissed.
Judicial Cases Nos. 6, 7, 8, and 9. — In the case of the complaints
of ( 1) Nathaniel West and Thomas H. Skinner against the Presbytery
of Cincinnati, for alleged judgment against the said West; (2) the same
against the same, for adopting a resolution of its Judicial Committee;
(3) E. D. Ledyard and others against the same, for the same proceed-
ing ; (4) Thomas H. Skinner and others against the same, for not sus-
taining the charges against Rev. W. C. McCune, the Committee
recommend that, as the reasons for direct complaint to the General As-
sembly as presented to the Committee, and in their hands, are deemed
insufficient, and as the constitutional jurisdiction and rights of the Synod
over its lower courts are to be sacredly respected, therefore these sev-
eral complaints be referred to the Synod of Cincinnati.
Judicial Case No. 10. — In the case of the complaint of Nathaniel
West and Thomas H. Skinner against the Synod of Cincinnati, in a case
of review and control, the Committee recommend that, it being a ques-
tion of mere review of records, a judicial complaint does not lie, and
that the case be dismissed.
Judicial Case No. 11. — In the case of Thomas H. Skinner and
others against the Synod of Cincinnati, for not taking up and issuing a
complaint of Dr. Skinner against the Presbytery of Cincinnati in the
1877-]
The General Assembly.
559
McCuna case, then pending, the Committee recommend that, as there
had been no judicial action of the Synod in the case against which a
complaint could lie, but simply and only a postponement of action on
a report of the Judicial Committee of the Synod, therefore the case be
dismissed.
To this along protest, too long for insertion here, was offered
by several members, and received to record. So far as we are
advised, no answer was made to it. That brings to view the
ground of the dissatisfaction of the appellants and complainants
with these several findings of the Assembly, and with its gen-
eral attitude in thus ruling out the whole subject.
In regard to No. 5, they protest that by the term “original
party” in our constitution is not meant merely a party to a
strictly judicial trial, but a “party aggrieved” by any judgment
of the Assembly, whether judicial or non-judicial. We cannot
agree with the position either of the Assembly’s minute or of
the protest.
We think that the whole 3rd section of Chapter vii — in the
Book of Discipline implies that the “original parties” were each
and all of the parties litigant, and that this follows alike from
the interior reason of the case, and from any consistent con-
struction of the different parts of the section. A public prose-
cutor may certainly be “aggrieved” by the manner in which
the judicatory has treated him and the cause 4 which he repre-
sents, and because in his judgment and those who agree with
him, if there be no redress by appeal, “justice is fallen in the
streets and equity cannot enter.” One may suffer as much from
a “lost cause,” and more from what he deems the defeat of vital
truths of religion, than from any mere personal injury ; he may
suffer as a member of Christ, wounded in the house of his
friends. Moreover, the reasons for an appeal assigned (Sec.
3) with a single exception, may pertain as much to the prose-
cutor, even if he be a public prosecutor, as to the accused.
The language of the book always speaks of “original parties”
as plural, not single. “The original parties and all the mem-
bers of the inferior judicatory shall withdraw.” — Id. 9. All this
reasoning applies in full force to a committee of prosecution
appointed by the judicatory in a case in which common fame
is the accuser. Such a committee has been expressly declared
one of the original parties in a case involving that question
before the O. S. Assembly, as the protest shows by a reference
560
The General Assembly.
[July,
to Moore s Digest, p. 563. Suppose a Presbytery, through preju-
dice or other perverting influence, utterly unfaithful or incom-
petent in its treatment of the committee of prosecution, their
witnesses, proof and arguments, who are so well fitted as they
to present their case in its strength to a higher tribunal?
The legal maxim nemo bis vexari dcbet , applies no more here
than in any possible case of appeal, civil or ecclesiastical. An
appeal does not repeat a trial otherwise complete. It ren-
ders it incomplete till perfected by a higher judicatory. Nor
does the right of complaint furnish an adequate remedy in
case of improper acquittal by the lower court upon the charge
of heresy. For, although it may condemn the error, it leaves
the errorist in unimpeached standing and free to propagate his
errors, however fatal, as a minister of the Church.
But, then, as to other persons than the original parties litigant
having the right of appeal, such in our view is not the mean-
ing of our book, either express or by implication, or according
to the drift of judicial decisions. — Moore's Digest, p. 592. A
complaint to a higher court is the proper relief for all other
aggrieved parties. Article 2 of Section in, Chap. 7, on
which, as compared with Art. 1, so much stress is laid, we think
is merely designed to put it beyond all doubt or peradventure
that a defeated, and especially a convicted, party can always
appeal, no matter who or what may be arrayed against the
exercise of the privilege. The cases brought directly from
Presbytery to the General Assembly, and by the Assembly re-
ferred back to Synod, were dealt with in accordance with the
prevailing usage, from which the Assembly never departs, un-
less in extreme and exceptional cases, and for most stringent
reasons. The reasons for any deviation from this usage should
be at least, prima facie, strong and irresistible. But of their
urgency the Assembly, in its wise discretion, must be the judge.
We see no evidence that in this case it is obnoxious to just
censure for such exercise of its judicial prerogative.
The dismissal of the complaint against the Synod of Cincin-
nati for the improper exercise of its power of review and con-
trol in its dealings with the records of the Presbytery of
Cincinnati may have been right or wrong in view of the facts
of the case. But from the exceptions taken by the Assembly
to those records, there seems to have been at least prima facie
ground of complaint. The reason assigned strikes us as inade-
1 877.] The General Assembly. 561
quate, viz., that “ being a question of mere review of records,
a judicial complaint does not lie.” If these records are
records of a judicial proceeding by a lower court serving
under the review of a higher, the approval or disapproval of
them may be, in substance and effect, a judicial act, and if de-
cidedly wrong, a just subject of complaint to, and call for re-
vision by, a higher court. Moreover, in the actual practice of
the Assembly, the “decision by an inferior judicatory, which in
the opinion of the complainants has been irregularly and un-
justly made,” has been taken in its broadest sense to mean
not only “judicial,” but any “decision” which, in the judg-
ment of complainants, is “ irregularly and unjustly made.”
The questions thus brought up and issued by the Assem-
bly on complaint are such as the propriety of one man
being simultaneously elder in two churches; the mode of
electing certain ruling elders ; against a reference of a case to
a. higher court by a Presbytery ; against a Synod for dissolving a
Presbytery, etc., etc. Indeed, it does not appear how great
wrongs by inferior judicatories can, in many cases, be presented
to the higher courts for correction, if complaints must be con-
fined to strictly judicial action, or if judicial records cannot be
made a matter of “ judicial complaint.” Suppose these records
omit the vital elements in a case ; what then ?
Into the original merits of the case as a whole, to which the
above mentioned acts refer, we have neither time nor space to
go. Even the matter of the complaints and appeals above re-
ferred to is not before us. We have touched only the reasons
which the record presents for the Assembly’s manner of dealing
with them, and some of the objections of the protestants.
As all such decisions, or the expressed reasons for them, by
the Assembly, tend to acquire authority and harden into pre-
cedents, especially when they pass unquestioned, we have
deemed it worth while to discuss, not the clecisions them-
selves, of the justice of which we have no means of judg-
ing, because we have no adequate authoritative knowledge of
the facts, but the sufficiency of the reasons assigned for
them. The literature of the case has already become so
enormous as to be extremely difficult to collect and digest.
Mr. McCune is now out of our Church, and we can hardly be-
lieve that a case that has issued in making our communion too
uncomfortable for him and such as he, will afford permanent
562 The General Assembly. [J ulyr
encouragement to future impugners of any part of our order
within our Church.
We think Mr. McCune has abundantly shown that “ he went
out from us because he was not of us.” As so often occurs in
such cases, he turns against his protectors. His doctrine that
no Christian Church has a right to maintain or make a condi-
tion of ministerial standing anything but that minimum of truth
which is left after excluding what is peculiar to each Chris-
tian denomination, cannot be carried out without starting one
more new sect and distracting existing churches. As a Pres-
byterian minister he undertook, without sanction of his Pres,
bytery, to form a church which, in its very constitution, was a
constant witness against Presbyterianism. What but confusion
and disorder could ensue? His scheme is a chimera which
cannot be realized this side the millennial or heavenly church,,
in which all see eye to eye, and know even as they are known.
As long as we know only in part, different Christian denomi-
nations are a necessity.
Any criticism of the proceedings of the various parties
judicial and litigant in this case would now be unprofitable
and superfluous. The case seems to have been complicated by
more or less mistakes and indiscretions, which tended to pro-
tract it. But we do not think the experiment out of which it
all grew is likely often to be repeated by ministers of the Pres-
byterian Church.
We think that on these matters our Church will hold no un-
certain attitude, and that whatever else may be true, the ‘‘ra-
tionalism and liberalism” which the last number of the South-
ern Presbyterian Review charges us with harboring, can be founds
if at all, only in homeopathic drops of the millionth dilution."
Other great subjects occupied the Assembly which we have
no space to note. The questions of Chinese and German
evangelization, of Sustentation, and other problems in the
Home and Foreign Field, Education, and much more, were
vigorously grappled and, in general, wisely concluded.
L. H. A.
* We have received, at the last moment, The Process, Testimony and Opening
Argument of the Prosecution , Note and Final Minutes of the Judicial Trial of Rev.
IV. C. McCune , by the Presbytery of Cincinnati, from March 6 to March 27, eSyj-
A well-printed pamphlet of 1 So pages, in which the substantial elements in the
case, with the views of the Prosecution and the Court, are fully exhibited. It will
be found convenient for reference. Cincinnati : Robt. Clark & Co.
1877-1
Contemporary Literature.
563
Art. X.— CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.
Theology.
Macmillan & Co. publish the second edition of Salvation Here and Here-
after, sermons and essays, by Rev. John Service, an English clergyman.
This volume is a vigorous and plausible expansion of the author’s paraphrase of
Pope’s famous couplet in the following terms : “ For modes of faith it is ob-
vious to common sense that senseless bigots fight, and they alone,” p. 154.
All theological tenets, creeds, doctrinal positions are his abhorrence. Moral
purity and uprightness of life, independently of all those evangelical and
supernatural truths which form the groundwork of Christian salvation and
true holiness, are wholly irrelative to the author’s view of “ salvation here and
hereafter nay, worse, they are scouted as if they were the dregs of an
obsol^e and pestilent dogmatism. The author is as Broad Church as it is
possible to be without repudiating the very name and pretence of Christianity.
Of future perdition, limited or unlimited in duration, he recognizes none
except that of continuance in an immoral or depraved state. The highest
salvation here and hereafter is that of self-sacrifice prompted by love. The
revelation of anything in the Bible, beyond the intuitive truths of morality
or natural religion, is denied by the author. He says:
“ This was the way in which it was felt that Christ had authority : He ignored
in his teachings those things for which authority was required ; he insisted upon
those things that speak for themselves, and carry authority along with them. These
were — these are — the great principles, goodness, morality, or whatever you like to
call the nobler way of life. When it is day no man needs to go about saying, ‘ It is
not night, it is not night.’ No more when it is said, ‘ Blessed are the good,’ do you
need to prove that it is quite true. Preachers who preach a system of theology
need to appeal to authority. They are impressive, if at all, not from what they say,
but from the authority they claim for saying it. It is different with preachers and
teachers of religion — with those whom God ordains to prophecy, line upon line,
precept upon precept, that to love God and man is all the law and the prophets.
They don’t need authority to recommend their word. There is authority in it. It
matters not who said it first or who says it last, because it is the truth.” — Pp. 106-7.
“Be pure, be true, be just, be generous, be magnanimous, be unselfish and un-
worldly. This is the sum and substance of what Christ says. In a word, it is mor-
ality, of course, the highest and purest, and connected with faith in God as the
Father and Saviour of all, but still it is morality. Blessed are the good. Cursed
are the evil. This is what all Christ’s sayings here, his blessings and his reproofs,
and his exhortations, amount to. Not a word about justification by faith, or the
doctrine of atonement, or church-membership, or conversion in a moment, or a death-
bed repentance, or any one of all those things of which, as concerning salvation, we
hear so much. Not a word about these things.” — P. 104.
This, although said of the Sermon on the Mount, is given as the representative
characteristic of Christ’s teachings universally.
So, denying that view of the inspiration of the Bible which holds that “ it
was directed by God just as it was written,” he finds the only inspiration
it contains in its unequalled exhibition of the “highest wisdom and noblest
humanity.” No wonder that such a writer makes some exceptional hypocrites
typical of the whole class of people who obey the Bible in all its parts as the
5^4
Contemporary Literature.
[July,
•word of God, and not merely in its self-evident moral axioms ; and that he
also makes them the occasion for a monstrous caricature of those Christians who
keep their allegiance to the word and church of God as supernatural and divine.
It is quite consistent for such a man to say of them, “ Their goodness is churchy,
not human or divine. They hold a man in greater detestation for heresy than for
villany, for a theological opinion which is supposed to be wrong than for a life in
which there is nothing right. They subscribe to heathen missions, neglect their
poor relations, and are unmannerly with their neighbors. They make money by
tricks of trade, build churches which are tombs of the prophets, and museums of
their dry bones, and condemn the poor to live in hovels. They hold a man in
esteem if he is rich and goes to church. If a man be a steady church-goer he is a
good man, though he deals in worthless goods, or cheats every market-day, or is a
faithless servant, or a heartless acquaintance. If a man is ever so honest and indus-
trious and kind, he is only a moral man unless he make a great profession of
religion. Are these Christ’s ideas of truth and goodness as they are here expressed ?
Is this goodness anything like Christ?” — Pp. 115-16.
We discover no standard in this book higher than the ethics and religion
of heathenism. Its animus toward the evangelical and supernatural in
Christianity is so bitter as to be its own antidote; indeed it gives us Chris-
tianity without Christ. For although it often refers to him, it recognizes
him only as Teacher, Exemplar, Martyr. He is divine, as we see in him “ all
that we have ever conceived of in the way of goodness ; since divine is a
name for the highest and best, this is divine.” This is what Christ’s divinity
amounts to, according to this volume.
Chas. B. Cox, of St. Louis, publishes seven discourses by Dr. James H.
Brooks, entitled Is the Bible True ? which defends it against the infidel
attacks of Strauss, Renan, et id genus omne, as these worm themselves in-
to the minds of that part of the community which is inclined to welcome the
skeptical arguments now or lately in fashion. This volume is fitted to do
good among persons and communities infected with this epidemic. It pre-
sents the arguments for the inspiration and canonicity of the books of the
Bible in a clear, compact and cogent form, and gives a vigorous refutation
of objections. We are especially struck with the overwhelming impres-
sion produced by the author’s array and collation of texts to prove that
the Bible asserts itself to be the word of God, however it may immediately
proceed from the mouth, or pen, of men employed as instruments for its
utterance. It is none the less the Lord that speaks, though he speaks with
the tongue, or pen, or in the peculiar style of any man.
George Bell & Sons, London, publish a work, of which Scribner, Arm-
strong & Co. have imported a special edition for use in this’ country at
$3.75, entitled The Doctritial System of St. John Considered as Evidence
for the Date of his Gospel , by the Rev. J. J. Lias, M.A. The object of the
author is to show that in John’s Gospel our Saviour sets forth in forms more
or less complete, at all events in germ and substance, the doctrines more
extensively and minutely elaborated in the epistles, and to some extent re-
ferred to in the synoptical gospels. This is ably done. It is in some respects
very much like some of the treatises published from time to time on the
1877-]
Contemporary Literature.
565
Theology of Christ. For this is most largely given out in St. John’s Gospel.
The author shows this to be so in regard to the great doctrines of the
Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Sin, Grace, Regeneration, Justification,
Sanctification, Election, in a word, Anthropology, Soteriology and Escha-
tology. He also shows that Christ in this Gospel furnishes many of the
forms of language and imagery for the due expression of the great truths of
Supernaturalism and Redemption which pervade the Epistles. We notice
that the author, while thoroughly evangelical in tone, nevertheless is a little
confused on an occasional point of cardinal moment. He holds to justifica-
tion by imparted as well as imputed righteousness. • But his book is, on the
whole, learned and discriminating, and an important addition to Johannean
literature and the supports of sound Scriptural doctrine. Of course, if the
Epistles presuppose St. John’s gospel, this must have been of an earlier
date. For sale also by McGinnis & Runyon, Princeton.
Questions Awakened by the Bible, by the Rev. John Miller, published
by Lippincott of Philadelphia, was received just after all the matter of our
last number had gone to press. Meanwhile the Presbytery of New Bruns-
wick, of which the author is a member, have taken it in hand and found
unanimously that it denies certain important doctrines of our standards, and
have accordingly suspended its author from the ministry. It consists of three
monograms respectively in answer to the questions, “ Is the soul immortal ?”
“ Was Christ in Adam ?” “ Is God a Trinity?” In regard to these severally the
Presbytery unanimously found : 1. “ That Mr. Miller teaches that the soul is
not immortal; that at the death of the body it dies and becomes extinct.”
2. “That Christ, as a child of Adam, was personally accounted guilty of
Adam’s sin ; that, like other children of Adam, he inherited a corrupt nature,
and that he needed to be and was redeemed by his own death.” 3. “ That
there is but one person in the T rinity. ” This is the last of a comparatively re-
cent series of books published by the author, which certainly indicate a quite
eccentric astuteness, subtlety and industry. They have enforced a tran-
sient attention by the amazement they have caused that such extravagances
should proceed from Princeton, and from the son of so illustrious a defender
of the faith they impugn as the Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., one of the
earliest professors of the Seminary. One of his books, which is written for
the purpose of branding the systematic theology of Dr. Hodge as a system
ofFetichism, under the title of “Fetich in Theology,” sufficiently reveals
some strange mental bias or disturbance. In undertaking the role of a great
originator and discoverer of new light in philosophy and theology, it will be
fortunate if he comes to agree with most of those who have examined his
writings most closely, that he has mistaken his vocation.
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. publish, and McGinness & Runyon have on
sale, Christianity and Islam, the Bible and the Koran. Four Lectures by
the Rev. W. R. W. Stephens, Prebendary of Chichester. They treat of
the origin of Christianity and Mohammedanism, the life and character of
[New Series, No. 22.) ~g
566
Contemporary Literature.
[July,
Mahomet, the contrast between the theological teaching of the Bible and
the Koran, also between the moral teaching of the two, and, what is not the
least important, the practical results of Christianity and Islam. It is done
in a calm, discriminating, judicial manner, and presents the grand points of
distinction between the two systems with more justice and in a shorter com-
pass than any other easily accessible book known to us. These lectures do
not run into original investigation or speculation, but rather present the re-
sults reached by Newman, Smith, Gibbon, Milman, and others, in a con-
densed and popular form. The author justly states their drift thus :
“ To the great prophet of Arabia, and to the marvelous work which he accom-
plished, I have endeavored to do justice, in opposition to the false and calumnious
estimate which in a past age condemned Mahomet himself as a kind of malicious
fiend, and his religion as a diabolical invention. On the other hand, I have sought
to show that Christianity and Islam are radically diverse in the nature of their
origin, in the character of their sacred books, and in their practical effects on man-
kind ; that the difference between them is one not of degree, but of kind, accord-
ing to the wise saying of Dr. Arnold, that while other religions showed us man
seeking after God, Christianity showed us God seeking after man ; a maxim which
students of the crude science of comparative religion are apt to forget. I have
endeavored, lastly, to point out that if there be these real and vital distinctions
between the two religions, it is worse than folly to try and ignore them; that
while there ought to be, and might be, peace and good will between the believers
in rival creeds, it should not be placed on a rotten foundation — the rotten founda-
tion which would be laid by those who see imaginary resemblances, and are blind
to real distinctions ; for if indiscriminate antagonism is mischievous, indiscrimi-
nate concession is mischievous also, and can only lead to confusion and disas-
ter.”—Pp. 7, 8.
The two treatises of the late Dr. Horace Bushnell, on the Vicarious Sac-
rifice, originally published at successive times, and the latter partly in cor-
rection and amendment of the former, have now been published by Scribner,
Armstrong Sc Co-, uniform as one work in two volumes. The brilliancy, orig-
inality, ingenuity and earnestness of the author are conspicuous in these vol-
umes, as in all his works. The work abounds in instructive and edifying pas-
sages. But the greatest prodigy of all, which his genius proved inadequate to
explain, is how a sane mind, however grand and magnificent, could have un-
dertaken to show that a strict vicarious sacrifice of Christ as the sinner’s sub-
stitute should “ involve the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions” in God)
while, at the same time, “ this simplest form of absurdity” constitutes that
“ altar form,” under which the soul must work itself in Christian cultus if it
would flourish in the Christian life. It is hard to see how two such states of
mind could coexist without a prodigious strain upon the faculty of reason.
It is w^ell that he saw cause to somewhat modify his earlier views.
The Christian Way: Whither it Leads, and How to Go On. By
Washington Gladden. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1877. We
heartily welcome this little volume. It is designed as a sequel to “ Being a
i8 77-]
Contemporary Literature.
567
Christian,” by the same author, which was an excellent help to enter the
Christian way, and we join in the devout wish of the writer that this one
may lead many from the joy of beginning into “ the glory of going on.”"
It is undoubtedly true that “ some clear and definite religious teaching is
needed by those who have entered the church, as well as by those who seek
to enter it. . . . It is important to know how to begin to be a Christian;
and it is equally important to know how to go on.” Hence this little vol-
ume. The titles of the several chapters will show its scope : The Chris-
tian’s Aim, The Christian’s Calling, The Christian in the Church, The
Christian as a Witness.The Christian in Business, The Christian in Society,-
The Christian’s Quiet Life.
Our Theological Century: A Contribution to the History of Theology in
the United States. By JOHN F. HURST, D.D. New York: A. D. F. Randolph
& Co., 1877. This essay was originally prepared for public deliver)', and was
so used on several occasions. It has been revised and enlarged, and is now
given to the public in its present fixed form. Dr. Hurst is too well known
as a writer to need commendation from us. This contribution to the history
of American theology covers considerable ground, and presents the theo-
logical conditions of the beginning of our national era, the American de-
velopment of theological thought, theological results, and present theological
necessities. It is, of course, only an outline, and is popular in form. Still
it contains much that is worth reading and pondering. “ Adherence to pure
Christian doctrine, and growdh in that doctrine — these have been the forces
of our highest and purest national life.” The author claims a very high
place for American writers and thinkers in the theological field, and thinks
before “ another generation shall pass away we shall see the new phenomena
of European masters in theology referring the young men who are to suc-
ceed them to the productions of the American theological mind ; and a little
later, the still greater phenomena of German and British aspirants for ex-
cellence in theology coming to this country, as the early theological students
to vigorous young Alexandria and Corinth, for the completion of their
studies at these sources of advancing doctrinal thought.”
The Children of Light, by Rev. Wm, W. Faris. Boston: Roberts
Bro thers, 1877. i2mo, pp. 312. The Hon. Richard Fletcher, LL.D.,
of Boston, made Dartmouth College his residuary legatee, and provided for
a special fund to be under the care of the trustees of said college, from the
avails of which they are to offer biennially a prize of $500 for the best
essay on the subject indicated in the following extract from his will :
“ In view of the numerous and powerful influences constantly active in drawung
professed Christians into fatal conformity with the world, both in spirit and practice;
in view also of the lamentable and amazing fact that Christianity exerts so little
practical influence, even in countries nominally Christian, it has seemed to me that
some good might be done by making permanent provision for obtaining and pub-
lishing once in two years a prize essay, setting forth truths and reasonings calculated
$68
Contemporary Literature.
[July,
to counteract such worldly influences, and impressing on the minds of all Christians
a solemn sense of their duty to exhibit, in their godly lives and conversation, the
beneficent effects of the religion they profess, and thus increase the efficiency of
Christianity in Christian countries, and recommend its acceptance to the heathen
nations of the world.”
We have given this extract not only to indicate the scope and character
of the essay in this volume, to which this prize was awarded, but because the
language sets forth so clearly and truthfully one of the most marked and
alarming tendencies of the times. We honor the noble purpose of the giver,
and trust that these biennial prizes will be worthy of the high end in view,
and prove eminently useful.
The work before us is admirably written. It is methodical in arrange-
ment, pure and simple in style, evangelical in spirit, and scriptural in its
teaching. The author divides his essay into five parts, after a brief survey
• of the Lights and Shadows. Part First. — Coming to the Light, i. Start-
ling Out. 2. Locating the Light. Part Second. — Mistaking Darkness for
Light, i. Stumbling. 2. Falling. 3. Maimed. 4. Reproved and Re-
called. Part Third. — Standing in the Light. 1. Learning to See. 2.
The Fellowship of Light. 3. The Secret of Light. 4. The Laws of Light.
Part Fourth. — Walking in the Light. 1. Christian Conduct, What? and
Why? 2. In the Home. 3. In the Church. 4. Among Men. Part Fifth.
— Working in the Light. 1. Responsibility. 2. Hindrances. 3. Motives.
4. What to do. This analysis of the contents will give the reader an intelli-
gent idea of the book, which we earnestly commend as a timely and admira-
ble contribution to our practical religious literature.
Biblical Literature.
Scribner, Welford& Armstrong respectively publish and sell at $6, a second
^edition, revised and improved, of The Training of the Twelves °r, Passages
out of the Gospels, exhibiting the Twelve Disciples of J esus under Discipline
for the Apostleship, by Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D., Professor of
Theology, Free Church College, Glasgow. Like Prof. Bruce’s more recent
work on the Humiliation of Christ, this has decided value. It brings to
view and opens out the meaning of the various discourses, parables, teach-
ings, incidents, in the course of our Lord’s ministry in connection with his
Apostles, which served in any degree to train them for their great mission.
This constitutes a very large part of our Lord’s life and ministry. While
this volume has the general merit of sound exegesis, it brings the added
light which results from surveying the Saviour’s teachings from a special
standpoint, and with special respect to their convergence toward one great
end. They have a good deal of exegetical theology, and are rich inhomileti-
cal applications of it to ministers and people. For sermonizers and exhorters
they are especially rich and suggestive, in helping preparation alike for
topical and expository discourses.
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. publish, and McGinnis & Runyon have for
sale in Princeton, another volume of the Great Commentary of Lange, edited
1 877.]
Contemporary Lit erat lire.
569
by Dr. Schaff. It is on the Books of Samuel, by Rev.,, Dr. Chr. Fr.
David Erdmann, Professor of Theology in the University of Breslau, and
is translated, enlarged and edited in an able manner by Rev. C. H. Toy,
D.D., LL.D., and Rev. John A. Broadus, D.D., LL.D., Professors in
the Theological Seminary in Greenville, S. C. We welcome this addition
to our apparatus for the due interpretation and application of this particular
book of Scripture in itself, and as an earnest of the speedy completion of the
publication in English of the exhaustive and encyclopediac work of which it
is a part.
Outlines of Hebrew Grammar, by Gustavus Bickell, D.D., Professor
of Theology at Innsbruck, revised by the author, and annotated by the
translator, Samuel Ives Curtiss, Jr., Ph.D., with a lithographic table
of Semitic characters, by Dr. J. EUTING, Leipzig, 1877. This little book of
140 pages contains a great deal of instructive matter with reference to the
history and etymology of the Hebrew language. It is not an introductory
grammar to vie with Davidson, Green or Seffer, or, indeed, a text-book of a
more advanced character. It is rather an outline of the principles of
Hebrew grammar from the standpoint of comparative philology, and thus
designed for advanced students. As such it has its appropriate place among
the constantly increasing number of Hebrew grammars. The principles of
Hebrew accentuation (§18-20) have been prepared by Dr. Franz Delitzsch,
the very best authority on this subject. Dr. Curtiss has done excellent work
both in his translation and notes. We can only express our regret that
Hebrew syntax receives so little attention, for this subject demands more
labor, and needs that more light should be thrown upon it.
The Apologies of Justin Martyr, and the Epistle to Diognetus, with
an introduction and notes, by Basil L. Gildersleeve, Ph.D., LL.D., Pro-
fessor of Greek in the John Hopkins University, Baltimore. Harpers, 1877..
This new volume of the Douglas series of Christian Greek and Latin writers
is an admirable one. The introductions are full and satisfactory ; the
analysis thorough, and the text carefully edited. The notes are the chief
features of the book, and these are models of conciseness, completeness
and scholarship. The points of syntax, especially, are worthy of careful
consideration, as Dr. Gildersleeve brings into comparison with the Greek of
Justin, the classic authors, the LXX, the New Testament, and Hellenistic
writers generally, as well as the Hebrew idiom. There are three indices :
Greek terms, texts of Scripture, and subjects. This work will be even more
useful to theological students and the studious ministry than to students of
Christian Greek in the college course.
T. & T. Clark of Edinburgh and Scribner, Welford & Armstrong pub-
lish, at $3.00, another volume of Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Com-
mentary on the New Testament, being Vol. I. of the Critical and Exeget-
ical Handbook to the Acts of the Apostles, extending through chapter xii;
translated by the Paton J. Gloag, D. D., and revised and edited by Dr.
570
Contemporary Literature. .
[July,
William P. Dickson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow.
The high merits of this commentary are recognized among exegetes and
biblical students, and it is eagerly sought for their libraries by all of this class
who can afford to purchase them. For sale in Princeton by McGinness &
Runyon.
History and Biography.
Ex-President Maclean's History of Princeton College. One of the most
important among recent historical productions has reached us at the
last moment. It is entitled the History of the College of New Jersey from
its Origin i/i 1746 to the Commencement of 1854, by John Maclean, the
tenth President of the College, in two handsome octavo volumes ; published
by J B. Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia, in a style as creditable to the pub-
lishers as the contents are to its honored and venerable author. It is the
first and only thorough history of Princeton College that has yet been writ-
ten. Interesting and valuable historical fragments and monograms have
been published, but this is the first complete and continuous history of one
of the earliest and largest of the great historical colleges of the country. It
is from the hand above all others qualified for the task. President Maclean,
himself the son of an eminent early professor of the institution, born and
reared within its classic shades, personally connected with it as stu-
dent, tutor, professor, president, for more than half a century, a resident
of Princeton since his retirement from office, has had means of knowledge,
and access to trustworthy sources of information, possible to no other
man. The preparation of it has afforded him becoming and useful occupa-
tion during his declining years ; and it is fortunate that he has had leisure
to test the truth of his narrative, to work it up thoroughly and well, and to
make an enduring monument for himself and the college out of materials
that were fast passing into an oblivion from which they could not otherwise
have been rescued.
Of course these volumes will be precious and attractive, not merely to the
graduates and immediate friends of the college, but to all lovers of high edu-
cation, and especially those interested in the successive stages of its develop-
ment in our larger and elder seats of learning. But this is not all. These
volumes shed great light upon important epochs and passages of American
history, civil and ecclesiastical — particularly the Revolutionary epoch, with
the periods preceding and following it. Old Nassau Hall was alternately
barracks for one or the other of the contending armies. Dr. Witherspoon,
its president during the Revolutionary era, was equally conspicuous as a
civilian, a divine, and an educator ; and was among the foremost of the Rev-
olutionary statesmen that declared our national independence and brought
our nation to its birth, as also of the divines that framed the Constitution of
the Presbyterian Church. His line of predecessors, Dickinson, Burr, Ed-
wards, Davies, Finley, contains the most illustrious names of early Presby-
terian and ecclesiastical history, while those that follow were among the
burning and shining lights of the church. Indeed, the college was founded,
1877-]
Contemporary Literature.
571
first of all, in the interest of religion — to raise up a learned ministry for the
church, and trained leaders in the State, and in every sphere of professional
life. Indeed, it grew more immediately out of the great revival of 1740, and
was especially founded and fostered by friends and supporters of that work.
Its history is therefore very largely the history of the early and formative era of
the American Presbyterian Church. The very mention of the names of its
presidents will show that the history of their successive administrations in-
volves matters of the highest moment in the religious development of our
country.
We trust that this work will command the attention and the circulation it
richly deserves.
Historical Sketch of Presbyterianism within the bounds of the Synod oj
■Central New York. By P. H. Fowler, D.D. Utica: Curtiss & Childs ;
pp. 755 1877. This work was a labor of love, and was prepared and pub-
lished at the request of the Synod, whose history it records with fullness of
detail, and in so lucid a manner, and in a style so pleasing, as to make it a
book of no ordinary interest even to the general reader. The work could
not have fallen into more competent hands ; and most worthily and con-
scientiously has the task been performed. The history covers a period of
seventy years ; and all will agree with the author that the “ dealings of the
Spirit with the churches of his own loved denomination on that field have
been remarkable and even wonderful.’'
Presbyterianism in Central New York was born and nurtured under the
happiest auspices. “ The best of ministers waited upon it, generally the
alumni of Eastern colleges and seminaries, intelligent and disciplined,
earnest and faithful, orthodox and orderly ; and they saw to it that their
succession was kept up, an d. candidates for ordination and applicants from
foreign bodies were thoroughly examined as to their piety and literary and
theological attainments.” * * “Great stress was laid on doctrinal
truth, and it entered largely into preaching and conversation as the prime
and principal element of Christian experience and living.” * * *
“ Calvanism being the system that was accepted and exacted,”
While the sketches of individual churches and institutions on the field are
a prominent feature, no little space is devoted to revivals, “the jewels and crown
of Presbyterianism in Central New York.” They began with “the great
revival of 1799,” and have kept up almost continuously down to the present
time. In these revivals originated many, if not the majority, of the churches
on this favored field. This region was the scene of Mr. Finney’s remark-
able ministry, which began in 1824, and was the occasion of “violent dis-
cussions and animosities in the Presbyterian Church throughout the land.”
Dr. Fowler treats this branch of the subject with intelligent discrimination
and sound judgment. His sketch of Mr. Finney, as a man and a preacher,
and the wonderful effects of his preaching, is exceedingly graphic and
interesting. He freely admits his faults and errors, both of manner and
5 72 Contemporary Literature. [July,
doctrine, some of which were serious ; but he claims for him a distinguished
place in the regards of the Church, and attributes no small part of the
growth and prosperity of the churches of Central and Western New York to
the revivals which were connected with his preaching. At the same time
his remarks on the whole subject of Revivals and Evangelists are pregnant
with meaning ; they are timely ; they deserve to be studied and pondered ;
they are the expression of a sound philosophy ; the mature reflections of one
who has carefully observed and studied the subject.
We regret that we cannot do better justice to this valuable history, but it
came to hand at the last hour.
The book also contains an address delivered before the Synod of Central
New York in October last, entitled The Presbyterian Element in our
National Life and History , by Prof. J. W. Mears. The theme was a
fitting one for our Centennial Year, and is here handled with ability and
effect.
A History and Manual of the Second Presbyterian Church in Troy,
N. K, prepared and published in its semi-centennial year, July 2d, 1876, by
its pastor, Dr. William Irvin, is a most cheering and creditable record.
It is the history of one of our largest churches, which, although not without
vicissitudes of trial, has, on the whole, been steadily prosperous, growing
itself while giving birth to and nourishing to the point of self-support
flourishing daughter churches. Its history is what might have been ex-
pected from its noble succession of pastors, which includes some of the
brightest names that have adorned the Presbyterian pulpit.
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. publish Charles Kingsley, his Letters and
Memories of his Life , edited by his wife, and abridged from the London
edition. It awakens additional tender memories as it reminds us of the life and
death, the literary ability and activity, and the marked Christian virtues of the
author of the abridgment, Mr. Edward Seymour, whose recent sudden
decease is so great a loss, not only to the eminent publishing house of which
he was an honorable member, but to the wide circle of authorship and
letters. • This volume is in all respects the better for the abridgment. It is
a rich and welcome contribution to that luxuriant issue of memoirs, biog-
raphies and autobiographies of eminent literary and professional men, which
constitute so salient a part of recent literature.
Charles Kingsley united in a remarkable degree the poet, novelist, radical,
socialistic reformer, political agitator, theological innovator, the earnest and
vigorous preacher and active pastor in the Anglican Church ; he was, in
short, a genius, setting himself at work in all directions to remove real or
seeming abuses in Church and State, which he saw clearly and felt keenly.
In religion he was the broadest of Broad Churchmen. He takes no pains
to conceal, but is ever eager to obtrude, his intense antipathy to that concrete
system of doctrines known as Evangelical. There are few established
truths, doctrines or institutions which do not undergo more or less of skepti-
i877-]
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573
cal searching and testing at his hand. While his sincere and unselfish
spirit, in dealing with the great concerns of God and man, is as conspicuous
as his originality and brilliancy of treatment, yet it is manifest that his
mind had a one-sidedness, a tendency to detect and magnify the evils, weak-
nesses and faults, rather than duly to appreciate the strength, merit and ex-
cellence of accepted systems and existing institutions. Yet, it is gratifying
to observe that as he advanced in life and experience he became more awake
to the substantial claims of much in the existing social, political and relig-
ious organizations to which he was before blind, and to the fallacies of the
ideal, speculative and unpractical, in his Alton Locke and other early publi-
cations. Maurice seems to have been, beyond all others, at once his master
and his ideal. Writing to him, Mr. Kingsley said :
“As to the Trinity, I do understand you : you first taught me that the Trinity was
a live thing, and not a mere formula to be swallowed by the undigesting reason ; and
from the time that I learned from you that a Father meant a real Father, a Son a
real Son, and a Holy Spirit a real Spirit, who was really good and holy, I have
been able to draw all sorts of practical lessons from it in the pulpit.” — P. 357.
He appears to have fluctuated very much in his ideas as to the binding
force of assent to the articles of a creed, and at times to have come nearer
the truth than Maurice, to whom in one case he writes thus :
“ I don’t quite understand one point in your letter. You say, ‘ The Articles were
not intended to bind men’s thoughts or consciences.’ Now, I can't help feeling that
when they assert a proposition, e. g., the Trinity, they assert that that and nothing else
in that matter is true, and so bind thought ; and that they require me to swear
that I believe it so, and so bind my conscience.” — P. 358.
But he clearly avows his unwillingness to be bound by any popular, how-
ever obvious, interpretation of the articles, or to be denied the liberty of
placing any “ non-natural sense ” upon them he may like, in the following
deliverance :
“ For myself I can sign the Articles in their literal sense toto corde , and subscrip-
tion is no bondage to me, and so I am sure can you. But all I demand is, that in
signing the Articles I shall be understood to sign them and nothing more ; that I
do not sign anything beyond the words, and demand the right to put my construc-
tion on the words, answerable only to God and my conscience, and refusing to
accept any sense of the words, however popular and venerable, unless I choose. In
practice Gorham and Pusey both do this and nothing else whenever it suits them.
I demand that I shall have the same liberty as they, and no more.” — Pp. 358-9.
It is very obvious that this mode of subscription would be elastic enough
to admit almost any grade of dissent and skepticism. It virtually overrides
the true understanding and intent which measures the obligation
of the parties; the true construction of all such subscriptions and
assent to creeds being the understood mind of the church which requires
them, animus impotientis. Yet the experience of Mr. Kingsley at length
taught him the necessity of some such anchorage to hold him from being
set adrift, without rudder or compass, by his own dreamy fancy. He says to
Maurice ;
574
Contemporary Literature.
[July,
“ I feel a capacity of drifting to sea in me which makes me cling nervously to any
little anchor like subscription. I feel glad of aught that says to me, ‘You must
teach this and nothing else; you must not run riot in your own dreams.’ ” — P. 360.
Nor did he fail to learn wisdom from experience in reference to his early
socialistic and radical theories. Speaking of natural political equality and
universal suffrage, he says :
“ I have some right to speak on this subject, as I held that doctrine strongly
myself in past years, and was cured of it, in spite of its seeming justice and charity,
by the harsh school of facts. Nearly a quarter of a century spent in educating my
parishioners, and experience with my own and others’ children— in fact, that school-
ing of facts brought home to the heart, which Mr. Mill never had, have taught me
that there are congenital differences and hereditary tendencies which defy all educa-
tion from circumstances, whether for good or evil. Society may pity those who are
born fools or knaves, but she cannot, for her own sake, allow them power if she can
help it.” — P. 374.
The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, by Rev. L. Tyerman. In 2 vols.,
8vo. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co., 1877. The author of this
work is well and favorably known to the public by his biographies of the
Wesleys, Charles and John, and his history of “ The Oxford Methodists.”
In their preparation he naturally accumulated much original and valuable
material for a new and standard life of Whitefield, the early friend of the
Wesleys, whose itinerant services promoted Methodism to a large extent.
The studies and services of Mr. Tyerman in this field have fitted him preemi-
nently for the task he has here undertaken and so creditably achieved.
The world has a right to know all that can be told of such a man. While
innumerable sketches, and at least half a dozen lives, of Whitefield have
already been published, we have in the present biography “a large amount
of biographical material which previous biographers had not em-
ployed, and much of which seems to have been unknown to them.” The
work is not written with special reference to the interest of any denom-
ination. Whitefield called himself a minister of the Church of Eng-
land ; but in fact he belonged to the Church Catholic. He loved all who
loved Jesus Christ, and was intent only on the salvation of souls. The
author claims and shows that “the friendship between Whitefield and the
Wesleys was much more loving and constant than it had been represented by
previous biographers; and that Whitefield’s services to Methodism were
more important than the public generally had imagined.” Whitefield is
here made as far as is possible his own biographer. The book is mainly one
of information. It has the substance of his journals — journals which, unlike
those of the Wesleys, have never been republished, and which are almost
unknown. In this day, when God is so signally honoring the ministry
of Evangelists, such a biography is timely, and may be read with great profit.
Whitefield’s power was not in his talents or oratory, but in his piety. In
prayer and faith and religious experience and devotedness to God, and in a
bold and steadfast declaration of the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, he may
have many true successors. God has, indeed, raised up some in this gen-
i8 77-]
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575
oration who are doing as great a work for Christ and the souls of men as
even Whitefield accomplished.
St. Augustine, a Poem in Eight Books, by Henry Warwick Cole, Q.
C., is published at $4.50 by the Clarks of Edingburgh, Scribner, Welford
& Armstrong of New York, and for sale by McGinness and Runyon of
Princeton. It is really a biography of the illustrious divine in verse, which
gives it whatever attractiveness may be thus imparted to a narrative in which
we detect very little poetry, but a very fine biographical portrait of the
greatest name in Christendom since the Apostles. It abounds in just and
beautiful sketches, and estimates of the salient points In his career and
works.
Miscellaneous.
Scribner, Armstrong Sc Co. have issued and have on sale with McGinness
and Runyon of Princeton, a third series of Mr. FPOUDE’S Short Studies on
Great Subjects, being a collection of papers previously given to the public
in various British and American periodicals, with the addition of two, one
on Divus Caesar, and another entitled Leaves from a South African Journal,
never before published. The latter is an animated description of his own
travels in that country'. The titles of the others are : Annals of an English
Abbey, Revival of Romanism, Sea Studies, Society in Italy in the Last
Days of the Roman Republic, Lucian, The Uses of a Landed Gentry, and
Party Politics. All these are treated with brilliancy and power. They dis-
play, too, a versatility as great as the variety of topics handled. We rarely
open a page which is not glowing with the warmth and brightness of his
genius for pen-painting, live discussions, vivid portraitures of the present
and the past. We give an extract from the essay on the Uses of a Landed
Gentry. We should like to give a dozen from almost every one of his
papers, in which the greatest blemish is a certain rationalistic tinge in his
treatment of most religious topics that come in his way :
“ Every step of what has been called progress for the last thousand years has been
the work of some man, or group of men. We talk of the tendencies of an age.
The tendencies of our age, unless it be a tendency to mere death and rottenness,
means the energy of superior men who guide and make it ; and of those superior
men who have played their parts among us at successive .periods, the hereditary
families are the monuments. Trace them back to the founders, you generally find
some one whose memory ought not to be allowed to die. And usually, also, in the
successive generations of such a family you find more than an average of high
qualities as if therewas some transmission of good blood, or as if the power of
discrediting good blood was a check on folly and a stimulus to exertion. In Scot-
land the family histories are inseparable from the national history. How many
Campbells, for example, have not established a right to be remembered with honor ?
How many hundred Scotch families are there not who have not produced, I will not
say one distinguished man, but a whole series of distinguished men ? Distinguished
in all branches — as soldieis seamen, statesmen, lawyers, or men of letters.
“ It is true that the highest names of all will not be found in the peerages and
576
Contemporary Literature.
[July>
baronetages. The highest of all, as Burns says, take their patent of nobility direct
from Almighty God. Those patents are not made out for posterity, and the coronets
which men bestow on the supremely gifted among them are usually coronets of
thorns. No titled family remains a coronet for Knox or Shakespeare. They
shine alone, like stars. They need no monument, being themselves immortal. A
dukedom of Stratford for the descendants of Shakespeare would be like a cap and
bell upon his bust. Of Knox you have not so much as a tomb ; you do not know
where his bones are lying. The burial place of Knox is in the heart of Protestant
Scotland.” — Pp. 302-3.
From the “ Leaves of his South African Journal” we take the following
account of a thunder-storm which overtook him while traveling in a mail-
cart:
“ Between four and five o’clock (he writes) the storm began; and, between the
darkness and the blinding effects of the lightning, in the intervals of the flashes, we
could scarcely see ten yards from us. Even in South Africa I never saw such a
display of celestial fireworks. The lightning was rose-color, deepening at times to-
crimson. Each flash appeared like a cross, a vertical line seeming to strike the
earth, a second line crossing it horizontally. The air was a blaze of fire. The
rain fell in such a deluge that the plain in a few minutes was like a lake. Of
course we could not move. The horses stood shivering up to their fetlocks in
water. At one time there was no interval between the lightning and the report, so
that we were in the very centre of the storm. The sense of utter helplessness pre-
vented me from being nervous; I sat still and looked at it in mere amazement. In
two hours it was over. The sky cleared almost suddenly, and, with the dripping
landscape shining in the light of a summer sunset, we splashed on to the river.”
— P. 382.
*
A. D. F. Randolph & Co. publish Our National Bane j or, the Dry-rot
in American Politics. A Tract for the Times touching Civil Service
Reform. By George L. Prentiss. Dr. Prentiss has done capital service
in publishing this tract, which is, after all, a volume of over 100 pages, every
sentence of which is as pointed and telling as its title-page in regard to the
great pest of our politics, which beyond any cause, with the possible ex-
ception of intemperance, an evil not by any means disconnected with it, is
working not only the political, but moral and religious demoralization of our
country, and beyond all else threatens to be the instrument of national
disintegration and dissolution. We wish it could be read, not only by every
statesman, official and politician, but by every voter in the country.
Only one thing needs to be added to give an adequate view of the sub-
ject, and show what cannot safely be overlooked by those who aim at any
permanent cure or mitigation of this dreadful evil. We refer to universal
suffrage in connection with the vast accession of ignorant and debased per-
sons to the franchise through the constant relaxation of naturalization laws,
along with the vast increase of the immigration of degraded people from
foreign countries, and the emancipation of the slaves of this country. The
debasement of the civil service, and the prevalence of the doctrine that
1 8 77-1
Contemporary Literature.
577
public offices are the spoils of party triumph have gone on pari passu with
the increase of the vote of the vile and worthless. Upon this the dema-
gogues so graphically sketched by Dr. Prentiss play and thrive. And so
long as fifty votes from the slums balance fifty votes from Union Seminary,
the demagogue who obtains this vote for any Senator or Representative, by
fair means or foul, makes that official sensible of dependence on him for-
getting or keeping office, and unwilling to deny him the reward he demands.
Here is the true fons et origo malorum.
The Necrological Report of the Alumni of Princeton Seminary , for the
past year, including three trustees — the brothers John C. and Chancellor
Henry W. Green, and Dr. J. M. Macdonald — and thirty-three who had been
students in the institution, contains the names of the late Bishop Johns, Drs.
Wm. B. Sprague, G. S. Boardman, J. B. Waterbury, Robert Davidson,
John S. Hart, Nathaniel H. Griffin, M. W. Jacobus, and several others of
note, which of themselves are sufficiently indicative of the high work done
by such institutions. It is worth the consideration of life-insurance com-
panies and actuaries that the average age of this list at death was 68. This
also deserves the attention of those who feel that they have a special vocation
to harp upon the peculiar hardships and trials of this noblest of professions.
The Rights, Powers and Duties of Members in Communion of the Re-
formed Protestant Dutch Church of the City of New York, is a pamphlet
originating in some recent controversies between the consistory and a por-
tion of the membership of that wealthy ecclesiastical corporation known as
the Collegiate Dutch or Reformed Church of the City of New York. It
probably sets in the strongest light the utmost privileges and powers which
•can be plausibly claimed by the membership of that church, if, unhappily,
any controversy arise between them and the elders.
The Report of the Commission to devise a Plan for the Government of Cities
in the State of New York, presented to the Legislature of the State of New
York, is an exceedingly able and valuable document on one of the most urgent
and difficult of the vexed questions of the times. It is printed at the Evening
Post office. This Commission, consisting of twelve of the most eminent pub-
licists of the city of New York, the Hon. Wm. M. Evarts chairman,
was appointed by Governor Tilden, under the authority of the Legislature
given at his recommendation. It is well worthy of the study, by its readers,
which it has evidently cost its authors. It subjects to a searching review the
existing evils in the government of cities, which are patent enough to all, and
which chiefly arise from the fact that their taxation, expenditures and
officers are determined and allotted by those who own not their property,
but comprise the larger portion of their ignorance and vice. The Commission
rightly judge that all but one of the remedies proposed or tried are at best
mere palliatives, often aggravations of the disease. The one remedy is to
restrict the right of suffrage in respect to questions of municipal taxation
and expenditure to the possessors of the property taxed, protected and
578
Contemporary Literature.
[July,
affected by the outlay. This judgment is all the more weighty as emanating
from a commission composed in nearly equal proportion of members of both
the great political parties.
Two Addresses before the American Colonization Society at its meeting
in January, 1877, one on the Christian Civilization of Africa, by the Hon.
H. B. Latrobe, the other entitled Patriotism , Philanthropy and Relig-
ion, by Alexander T. McGill, D.D., L.L.D., are contributions toward
the solution of the “color question” with collateral issues in this country,
and the problem of Christianizing and civilizing Africa, which will repay
careful perusal.
The Carters issue Servants of Christ, by the author of “A Basket of Bar-
ley Loaves”; A Hero in the Battle of Life and other Brief Memorials, by
the author of “ Memorials ofCapt. Hedley Vickers,” two small and attractive
volumes for the young, and for Sunday-school libraries ; also, A Wreath of
Indian Stories, by A. L. O. E., Honorary Missionary at Amritsar, author of
“ The Young Pilgrim,” “ Rescued from Egypt,” etc., etc.
The Presbyterian Board of Publication have added the following works to
their catalogue: The Maiden Martyr of Scotland, by Matthew Mowat
(an admirable little book for the family or the Sunday-school) ; The Pocket
Hymnal (a very neat and convenient edition) ; Giving in Hard Times:
A Word to the People and their Pastors, by Rev. John Abbott French,
published by request of the Synod of New Jersey, which we wish could
be read and its lessons laid to heart by all who complain of the hard times
and make them often an excuse for not giving, and who by their sins, as
the author boldly and justly charges, helped to bring these times upon
us. Alypius of Agaste, by Mrs. Webb, i2mo, pp. 379. Pomponiaj or, the
Gospel in Ccesar's Household, by the same author, i2mo, pp. 480. Mrs.
Webb has fairly won a good reputation in the field of religious fiction. She
writes sensibly, and with an earnest purpose. Her books not only interest,
but tend to elevate the mind. The two works before us are similar in scope
and aim. The scene of the first is laid in Egypt in the fourth century.
Agaste was the birthplace of the great Augustine, and he and Alypius were
companions in their boyhood. The scene of the other is laid in Rome in
the reign of the emperor Claudius. Seizing on a few of the salient facts of
history and making them the basis of her narrative, Mrs. Webb weaves a
story in each case full of interest and instruction, not only to the young, but
to mature minds.
Hours -with Men and Books. By Prof. Wm. Matthews, LL.D. Chica-
go : S. C. Griggs & Co. 1877. i2mo, pp. 384. The author of this vol-
ume has achieved remarkable success. His style is captivating, and he has
the rare faculty of adorning his pages with apt and telling illustrations.
His “ Getting on in the World,” and “The Great Conversers,” made his
name familiar to thousands, and the present volume will add to the num-
1 3 77-]
Contemporary LiteraUire.
579
ber. Some of the world’s great authors — DeQuincy, South, Spurgeon, and
Judge Story — are passed in review by him; and nearly a score of topics,
among which are Moral Grahamism, The Illusions of History, The Morality
of Good Living, Homilies on Early Rising, Literary Triflers, Writing for
the Press, A Forgotten Wit, Book Buying, Working by Rule, and Too
Much Speaking, are discussed with wit and spirit and good sense. The
book is highly entertaining, and abounds with valuable criticisms. We
have nowhere seen so full and satisfactory a paper on Spurgeon — the ele-
ments and secret of his wonderful power and success.
Chedayne of Kotono , a story of the early days of the Republic. By
Ausburn Towne. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. i2mo, pp. 6o6.
This is evidently the author’s maiden effort, and hence the critic must not be
severe. It is to its credit to be able to say that it does not belong to the
sensational school. There is not much plot in it, and no sharp and discrim-
inating character-drawing, and very little philosophy. Still it is a book
which many will read with interest and pronounce good. The most that
we can say of it is, that it gives promise of better performance in the
future.
Fridthjof s Saga; a Norse Romance, by Esaias Tegner, Bishop of
Wexio, translated from the Swedish by Thomas N. E. HOLCOMB and
Martha A. Lyon Holcomb. Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co., 12 mo., pp.
213. 1 877. This celebrated poem — “one of the most remarkable pro-
ductions of the age,” according to a high critical authority — has run through
numerous large editions in Sweden, and also in Norway. It has been repro-
duced in all European languages, even in Russian, Polish, and Modern
Greek. The present translation is the nineteenth English, but the first
American translation. One special feature of it, which gives it interest, is
that every canto is rendered in the same metre as the Swedish original,
and the feminine rhymes are everywhere preserved. Such a poem needs
no praise of ours, when no less a poet than Longfellow says of it : “ The
legend of Fridthjof, the valiant, is the noblest poetic contribution which
Sweden has yet made to the literary history of the worid.”
Miss Corson's Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical,
Every-day Cookery. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1877. Miss Corson
is the Superintendent of the New York Cooking School, and this little vol-
ume is the fruit of her practical knowledge of the subject. It is simple,
concise, sensible, and embodies in a brief compass just the information
which every good and economical housekeeper needs. She admirably an-
swers the question, How well can we live if we are moderately poor?
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. publish Alcohol as a Food and Medicine.
A Paper from the Transactions of the International Medical Congress at
Philadelphia , September , 1876, by Ezras M. Hunt, A.M., M.D., who
has achieved distinction, not only by his contributions to medical and sanitary
Contemporary Litcraturc%
[July, 1877.
580
literature, but also in religious and biblical publications. This volume was
the answer of the International Medical Congress to the Memorial of the
National Temperance Society asking for a deliverance on the subject of
which it treats. It very ably contests the claims so often made in behalf of
the nutritious and medicinal virtues of alcohol. Without denying someex-
treme cases, in which the stimulus of alcohol may spur the vital functions to
a needed exceptional and abnormal activity, it conclusively proves that the
free and ordinary use of it as a support or stimulus to flagging vitality is a
remedy worse than the disease.
The Russo-Turkish War. This little work, costing but fifteen cents,
and published by the Christiati Union Print, gives the information which
everybody needs just now in reference to this absorbing subject. “Who
Are the Turks? What is Russia? The Christian Provinces, The Two
Religions, How the War Began, The Seat of War, Prospects and
Probabilities, are the several points discilssed. A map also accompanies the
work. We do not see how it were possible to compress more important in-
formation bearing on the subject in the same space than we have here. No
intelligent man can afford to forego a thorough knowledge of this great
movement, the full significance and probable results of which cannot well be
overestimated, and may essentially affect the political condition of the old
world, and inaugurate a new state of things throughout the Eastern Church.
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